Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Individual Liberty, Free Markets, and Peacehttp://www.cato.org/
enamast@cato.org (Andrew Mast)webmaster@cato.org (Cato Webmaster)Thu, 16 Oct 2014 10:21:12 -0400Thu, 16 Oct 2014 10:22:04 -0400The End of Transit and the Beginning of the New Mobility: Policy Implications of Self-Driving Carshttp://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/end-transit-beginning-new-mobility-policy-implications-self-driving-cars-0
<p>Experimental self-driving cars will be on the market by 2020 and will radically transform the 21st century. What should Washington policymakers know about the future of American mobility? How will self-driving cars affect the viability of urban transit and regional planning? What kind of regulation will be needed to protect safety and privacy? Please join us for a preview of the future of American transportation.</p>
http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/end-transit-beginning-new-mobility-policy-implications-self-driving-cars-0Wed, 15 Oct 2014 12:10 EDTAdam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Randal O'Toole, Marc Scribner, Adam D. ThiererPermissionless Innovation and Tech Policyhttp://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/permissionless-innovation-tech-policy
<p>An improved standard of living depends on experimentation with new ideas, but politicians always seem to insist that innovators seek permission first. Author Adam Thierer argues they have it precisely backwards.</p>http://www.cato.org/multimedia/daily-podcast/permissionless-innovation-tech-policyWed, 09 Apr 2014 11:36 EDTAdam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererAdam Thierer on the issues raised by Internet tax policyhttp://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-audio/adam-thierer-issues-raised-internet-tax-policy
http://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-audio/adam-thierer-issues-raised-internet-tax-policyTue, 01 May 2012 11:48 EDTAdam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererAdam Thierer Discusses Internet Taxationhttp://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-video/adam-thierer-discusses-internet-taxation
http://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-video/adam-thierer-discusses-internet-taxationMon, 02 Apr 2012 20:00 EDTAdam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererInternet Taxation: Should States Be Allowed to Tax outside Their Borders?http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/internet-taxation-should-states-be-allowed-tax-outside-their-borders
http://www.cato.org/multimedia/events/internet-taxation-should-states-be-allowed-tax-outside-their-bordersMon, 19 Mar 2012 08:00 EDTAdam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Daniel J. Mitchell, Adam D. ThiererThe World Wide Web (of Bureaucrats?)http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/world-wide-web-bureaucrats
<em>Kofi Annan, Coming to a Computer Near You!</em> The Internet&#8217;s long run as a global cyberzone of freedom&#8212;where governments take a “hands off” approach&#8212;is in jeopardy. Preparing for next month&#8217;s U.N.-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society (or WSIS) in Tunisia, the European Union and others are moving aggressively to set the stage for an as-yet unspecified U.N. body to assert control over Internet operations and policies now largely under the purview of the U.S. In recent meetings, for an example, an EU spokesman asserted that no single country should have final authority over this “global resource.”
<p> To his credit, the U.S. State Department&#8217;s David Gross bristled back: “We will not agree to the U.N. taking over management of the Internet.” That stands to reason. The Internet was developed in the U.S. (as are upgrades like Internet 2) and is not a collective “global resource.” It is an evolving technology, largely privately owned and operated, and it should stay that way. </p>
<p> Nevertheless the “U.N. for the Internet” crowd say they want to “resolve” who should have authority over Internet traffic and domain-name management; how to close the global “digital divide”; and how to “harness the potential of information” for the world&#8217;s impoverished. Also on the table: how much protection free speech and expression should receive online. </p>
<p> While WSIS conferees have agreed to retain language enshrining free speech (despite the disapproval of countries that clearly oppose it) this is not a battle we&#8217;ve comfortably won. Some of the countries clamoring for regulation under the auspices of the U.N.&#8212;such as China and Iran&#8212;are among the most egregious violators of human rights. </p>
<p> Meanwhile, regulators across the globe have long lobbied for greater control over Internet commerce and content. A French court has attempted to force Yahoo! to block the sale of offensive Nazi materials to French citizens. An Australian court has ruled that the online edition of Barron&#8217;s (published by Dow Jones, parent company of <em>The Wall Street Journal</em> and this Web site), could be subjected to Aussie libel laws&#8212;which, following the British example, is much more intolerant of free speech than our own law. Chinese officials&#8212;with examples too numerous for this space&#8212;continue to seek to censor Internet search engines. </p>
<p> The implications for online commerce are profound. The moment one puts up a Web site, one has “gone global”&#8212;perhaps even automatically subjected oneself to the laws of every country on the planet. A global Internet regulatory state could mean that We Are the World&#8212;on speech and libel laws, sales taxes, privacy policies, antitrust statutes and intellectual property. How then would a Web site operator or even a blogger know how to act or do business? Compliance with some 190 legal codes would be confusing, costly and technically impossible for all but the most well-heeled firms. The safest option would be to conform online speech or commercial activities to the most restrictive laws to ensure global compliance. If you like the idea of Robert Mugabe setting legal standards for everyone, then WSIS is for you. </p>
<p> The very confusion of laws makes some favor a “U.N. for the Internet” model. Others propose international treaties, or adjudication by the World Trade Organization, to stop retaliation and trade wars from erupting over privacy, gambling and pornography. Still others assert that the best answer is to do nothing, because the current unregulated Web environment has helped expand free speech and commerce globally for citizens, consumers and companies. </p>
<p> We favor the nonregulatory approach. But where laissez-faire is not an option, the second-best solution is that the legal standards governing Web content should be those of the “country of origin.” Ideally, governments should assert authority only over citizens physically within its geographic borders. This would protect sovereignty and the principle of “consent of the governed” online. It would also give companies and consumers a “release valve” or escape mechanism to avoid jurisdictions that stifle online commerce or expression. </p>
<p> The Internet helps overcome artificial restrictions on trade and communications formerly imposed by oppressive or meddlesome governments. Allowing these governments to reassert control through a U.N. backdoor would be a disaster.</p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/world-wide-web-bureaucratsSun, 09 Oct 2005 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Clyde Wayne Crews Jr., Adam D. ThiererThe Regulator Who Loved Marketshttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/regulator-who-loved-markets
<p>The free market lost a friend Friday and, believe it or not, it&#8217;s a regulator. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Michael Powell announced that he is stepping down in March after a turbulent, controversial tenure in office. He will be sorely missed because he is the rarest of species-a rational regulator who genuinely believes in the superiority of markets over mandates and capitalism over central planning.</p>
<p>After all, how many bureaucrats make a habit out of quoting the works of Friedrich Hayek, Joseph Schumpeter, Ronald Coase, and Adam Smith? But Powell did more than simply give these thinkers lip service; he integrated their teachings on markets, incentives, and human liberty into almost everything he said or did during his tenure at the FCC. “The market is the best vehicle designed by mankind for innovation, for technology change and evolution. I would caution we review fully the lessons of economic history to deepen our appreciation of that fact,” he noted in an October 2001 speech.</p>
<p>In a speech a few months earlier before members of the Federal Communications Bar Association-some of the Beltway&#8217;s biggest proponents of “public interest” regulatory intervention-Powell declared, “Contrary to the classic bugaboo that markets are just things that favor big business and big money, market policies have a winning record of delivering benefits to consumers that dwarfs the consumer record of government central economic planning. Thus, if you are truly committed to serving the public interest, bet on a winner and bet on market policy.”</p>
<p>More impressively, this is a man who once stood before a hostile group of telecom industry service resellers who were clamoring for more government-mandated infrastructure-sharing and told them, “There is no upside, in the long run, being dependent on your primary competitor for your key assets, or in relying on the government to protect or subsidize your service. Wherever and whenever possible build facilities. Only by controlling your own essential facilities do I believe you can differentiate your service. And, the more you possess your own assets, the less you need to look to the government for salvation.” Needless to say, they didn&#8217;t appreciate that. But that&#8217;s the way Powell worked: no pulling punches; no need to capitulate to appease an audience; no need to sell out freedom for short-term political gain.</p>
<p>In fact, when asked at his very first press conference after becoming Chairman about the existence of a supposed “digital divide” in America he famously said, “I think there&#8217;s a Mercedes divide-I&#8217;d like to have one; I can&#8217;t afford one.” The self-anointed “consumer advocates” went after him with a vengeance for that one. But he has never recanted those remarks; rather, he has repeatedly stressed in his subsequent speeches the amazing and unabated diffusion of computer and communications technologies and services throughout our society.</p>
<p>Rhetoric aside, Powell worked hard to translate his market principles into action, occasionally meeting with some success, but more often being greeted by overt hostility from special interests and other status quo-oriented policymakers. One area where Powell&#8217;s vision yielded tangible results was spectrum policy where his leadership helped give rise to a veritable public policy revolution at the FCC. Powell formed a Spectrum Policy Task Force that issued an amazing report containing a sweeping indictment of the agency&#8217;s past record. As a result, remarkable changes are underway at the agency that will unleash the wireless sector from the shackles of the command-and-control central planning techniques that have hindered it for over seven decades.</p>
<p>When it came to telecom and broadband policy, Powell&#8217;s vision has been equally clear: “I believe strongly that broadband should exist in a minimally regulated space.” He attempted to push through numerous reforms to achieve that vision but was directly thwarted on one important deregulatory initiative by fellow Republican Commissioner Kevin Martin, who cast his vote with the Commission&#8217;s Democrats in favor of expanded regulatory oversight by state regulators. Of course, it doesn&#8217;t help that Powell&#8217;s superiors in the Bush Administration have never lent any serious support to the reforms he has proposed. The Bush team was content to talk a big game when it came to broadband deployment and telecom deregulation but then let Powell take all the heat when it came to the controversial steps needed to get us there.</p>
<p>Finally, despite the hysteria generated by the opponents of efforts to relax archaic media ownership regulations, Powell pushed through some limited relaxation of existing rules. Warning of the dangers of government overreach on the this front, Powell noted, “[W]hile we are right to concern ourselves with Citizen Kane, we should not use that concern to justify the resurrection of King George. Our founding fathers said little about commercial owners of news and print, but they reserved the top spot on the bill of rights to condemn the government from foisting its values, preferences, viewpoints or tastes on a free people.”</p>
<p>Will history judge Mr. Powell kindly? It depends who writes that history, of course. But for those who cherish liberty and limited government, he should be remembered as a man who fought to reverse the widespread presumption held by his fellow regulators that market failure is everywhere and that only incessant intervention by benevolent bureaucrats can protect the amorphous “public interest.” Michael Powell&#8217;s legacy is that the regulation is not synonymous will consumer welfare; government failure is the bigger concern. Let&#8217;s hope his successors heed that lesson.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/regulator-who-loved-marketsFri, 21 Jan 2005 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererOf Desperate Housewives and Desperate Regulatorshttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/desperate-housewives-desperate-regulators
<p>Get ready for another impassioned censorship crusade by the “let&#8217;s-censor-television-to-protect-the-children” crowd. The latest Nielsen television ratings are out and they reveal that in addition to being the most popular show among adults, ABC&#8217;s smash-hit <em>Desperate Housewives</em> is also the most popular broadcast-network television show with kids aged 9-12.</p>
<p>No doubt, the relentless censorship advocates at the Parents Television Council (PTC) are already firing up the engines at their automated complaint factory to bombard Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulators with letters. Recent Freedom of Information Act requests to the FCC have revealed that the PTC has been responsible for over 98 percent of all indecency complaints to the FCC over the past two years. PTC is quickly coming to have a “heckler&#8217;s veto” over programming in America as many of the shows they complain about receive significant fines or are even driven off the air.</p>
<p>While the PTC claims to be non-partisan, the watchdog group&#8217;s public policy advocacy adopts a distinctly social conservative and moralistic tone. Interestingly, the PTC&#8217;s motto is: “Because Our Children Are Watching,” which begs the question: Why are your children watching? Why are they watching <em>Desperate Housewives</em> or any other show you find objectionable? I know my kids aren&#8217;t watching.</p>
<p>I&#8217;ve always been particularly troubled by the fact that so many conservatives, who rightly preach the gospel of personal and parental responsibility about most economic issues, seemingly give up on this notion when it comes to cultural issues. Art, music, and speech are fair game for the Ministry of Culture down at the FCC, but don&#8217;t let them regulate our cable rates! Conservatives and religious groups decry government activism in terms of educating our children, for example, but with their next breath call in Uncle Sam to play the role of surrogate parent when it comes to TV content.</p>
<p>Censorship advocates like the PTC respond that parents just don&#8217;t have enough time to monitor their children&#8217;s listening and viewing habits in this hectic age. But this is a weak excuse for government intervention. If parents bring media devices into the home and then give their kids free rein, that&#8217;s just poor parenting. While there&#8217;s more media than ever before, there also exist more technological tools to screen or limit what children see. Parents don&#8217;t bring other products home-such as cars, weapons, liquor, or various chemicals-and then expect the government to assume responsibility from there. But that is essentially the logic many social conservatives rely on to justify broadcast television and radio censorship.</p>
<p>Censorship advocates also claim that any exposure to “indecent” or “violent” material will result in degenerate, dangerous youth. Increased exposure to media-and especially television-they argue, can be directly correlated with promiscuous sexual behavior or aggressive tendencies. The psychological literature is all over the place on this issue, but recent social trends call this thesis into question. Despite the fact that today&#8217;s youngsters live in a media-saturated would and consume much more news and entertainment than previous generations, important cultural indicators are all showing significant signs of improvement. Consider these facts:</p>
<ul>
<li>Juvenile murder, rape, robbery and assault are all down significantly over the past decade. Overall, aggregate violent crime by juveniles fell 42% from 1995-2002.</li>
<li>There are fewer murders at school today and fewer students report carrying weapons to school or anywhere else than at any point in the past decade.</li>
<li>Alcohol and drug abuse has generally been falling and is currently at a 20-year low. Teen birth rates have hit a 20-year low and fewer teens are having sex today than they were 15 years ago.</li>
<li>High school dropout rates continue to fall steadily, as they have for the past 30 years.</li>
<li>And while teenage suicide rates rose steadily until the mid-1990s, they then began a dramatic decline that continues today.</li>
</ul>
<p>Not surprisingly, you don&#8217;t hear any of this good news over at the PTC website or from other conservative groups. Could it be because it does not fit nicely into their “Let&#8217;s-blame-media-for-all-our-problems” mentality? Social conservative icon William Bennett used to publish a book entitled “The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators” that read like a guidebook to the fall of civilization. A new edition is nowhere to be found, however. Bennett appears to have abandoned the endeavor as soon as all the numbers started to improve.</p>
<p>Alas, none of these facts will stop desperate regulators and even more desperate censorship advocates from condemning <em>Desperate Housewives</em> and the fact that many youngsters are apparently watching such a racy show. Instead of rushing to fire off complaints to the FCC, maybe parents should start rushing to the remote to turn off the television.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/desperate-housewives-desperate-regulatorsWed, 05 Jan 2005 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererDesperate Housewives and Desperate Regulatorshttp://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/desperate-housewives-desperate-regulators
<p>
<!--TEXT -->
Get ready for another impassioned censorship crusade by the “let&#8217;s-censor-television-to-protect-the-children” crowd. The latest Nielsen television ratings are out and they reveal that in addition to being the most popular show among adults, ABC&#8217;s smash-hit <em>Desperate Housewives</em> is also the most popular broadcast-network television show with kids aged 9-12. </p>
<p> No doubt, the relentless censorship advocates at the Parents Television Council (PTC) are already firing up the engines at their automated complaint factory to bombard Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulators with letters. Recent Freedom of Information Act requests to the FCC have revealed that the PTC has been responsible for over 98 percent of all indecency complaints to the FCC over the past two years. PTC is quickly coming to have a “heckler&#8217;s veto” over programming in America as many of the shows they complain about receive significant fines or are even driven off the air. </p>
<p> While the PTC claims to be non-partisan, the watchdog group&#8217;s public policy advocacy adopts a distinctly social conservative and moralistic tone. Interestingly, the PTC&#8217;s motto is: “Because Our Children Are Watching,” which begs the question: Why are your children watching? Why are they watching <em>Desperate Housewives</em> or any other show you find objectionable? I know my kids aren&#8217;t watching. </p>
<p> I&#8217;ve always been particularly troubled by the fact that so many conservatives, who rightly preach the gospel of personal and parental responsibility about most economic issues, seemingly give up on this notion when it comes to cultural issues. Art, music, and speech are fair game for the Ministry of Culture down at the FCC, but don&#8217;t let them regulate our cable rates! Conservatives and religious groups decry government activism in terms of educating our children, for example, but with their next breath call in Uncle Sam to play the role of surrogate parent when it comes to TV content. </p>
<p> Censorship advocates like the PTC respond that parents just don&#8217;t have enough time to monitor their children&#8217;s listening and viewing habits in this hectic age. But this is a weak excuse for government intervention. If parents bring media devices into the home and then give their kids free rein, that&#8217;s just poor parenting. While there&#8217;s more media than ever before, there also exist more technological tools to screen or limit what children see. Parents don&#8217;t bring other products home &#8212; such as cars, weapons, liquor, or various chemicals &#8212; and then expect the government to assume responsibility from there. But that is essentially the logic many social conservatives rely on to justify broadcast television and radio censorship.</p>
<p> Censorship advocates also claim that any exposure to “indecent” or “violent” material will result in degenerate, dangerous youths. Increased exposure to media &#8212; and especially television &#8212; they argue, can be directly correlated with promiscuous sexual behavior or aggressive tendencies. The psychological literature is all over the place on this issue, but recent social trends call this thesis into question. Despite the fact that today&#8217;s youngsters live in a media-saturated world and consume much more news and entertainment than previous generations, important cultural indicators are all showing significant signs of improvement. Consider these facts: </p>
<p></p>
<ul>
<li>Juvenile murder, rape, robbery and assault are all down significantly over the past decade. Overall, aggregate violent crime by juveniles fell 42% from 1995-2002. </li>
<li>There are fewer murders at school today and fewer students report carrying weapons to school or anywhere else than at any point in the past decade. </li>
<li>Alcohol and drug abuse has generally been falling and is currently at a 20-year low. Teen birth rates have hit a 20-year low and fewer teens are having sex today than they were 15 years ago. </li>
<li>High school dropout rates continue to fall steadily, as they have for the past 30 years. </li>
<li>And while teenage suicide rates rose steadily until the mid-1990s, they then began a dramatic decline that continues today. </li>
</ul>
<p> Not surprisingly, you don&#8217;t hear any of this good news over at the PTC website or from other conservative groups. Could it be because it does not fit nicely into their “Let&#8217;s-blame-media-for-all-our-problems” mentality? Social conservative icon William Bennett used to publish a book entitled “The Index of Leading Cultural Indicators” that read like a guidebook to the fall of civilization. A new edition is nowhere to be found, however. Bennett appears to have abandoned the endeavor as soon as all the numbers started to improve. </p>
<p> Alas, none of these facts will stop desperate regulators and even more desperate censorship advocates from condemning <em>Desperate Housewives</em> and the fact that many youngsters are apparently watching such a racy show. Instead of rushing to fire off complaints to the FCC, maybe parents should start rushing to the remote to turn off the television. </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/desperate-housewives-desperate-regulatorsTue, 04 Jan 2005 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererPatently Absurdhttp://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/patently-absurd
<p>
<!--TEXT -->
Would it make sense to allow a clothing designer to patent a fashion fad, like “bell bottom” jeans or mini skirts? Likewise, should beauticians be able to patent a particular hair style, or should fragrance makers be granted intellectual property protection for the scents in their perfumes or colognes?</p>
<p> Granting designers patents in these fashions or fads would seem fairly absurd since most countries typically do not allow aesthetics &#8212; or matters of fashion and beauty &#8212; to be the subject of intellectual property law. But that doesn&#8217;t stop some companies from attempting to do so. For example, General Motors recently announced it is suing a Chinese carmaker for allegedly copying an automotive body design similar to one produced by Daewoo, a South Korean unit of GM. GM has been considering a case against a state-owned carmaker Chery for some time, suspecting the Chinese company of borrowing many design elements or even components from the Daewoo “Matiz” model. </p>
<p> While there may be some merit to some of the claims made by GM, efforts to secure intellectual property in aesthetics need to be carefully scrutinized. In the United States, the debate over protecting aesthetics has recently heated up after measures passed into law granting some protection to architectural designs and boat hull designs. Other countries have considered similar laws or already have similar legal protections in place. </p>
<p> There are two good reasons why governments typically do not grant patents or copyrights for fashions or designs. First, it is extraordinarily difficult to separate one claim from another. Car, boat or building designs are, at root, highly subjective forms of art. There is a great deal of ambiguity tied up in the question of what separates one design from another. You can find more than a few skyscrapers in one city that will resemble those found in another. And many of the cars on the road today look a lot alike. These practical considerations weigh against the award of a patent to one designer since many others can independently arrive at a very similar conception of a building, boat, or car.</p>
<p> Second, as a matter principle, copyright and patent law should be primarily concerned with creating incentives to innovate. We want artists and scientists to be more creative and produce more works for society and, therefore, we grant them certain <em>limited</em> terms of protection to incentivize such activity.</p>
<p> But it has always been acknowledged that there must be some rational limits on the scope of IP protection granted by law, and that includes the question of whether it makes sense, in some cases, to grant any protection at all. Fashions, fads, and aesthetic designs have traditionally fallen into this camp. There is little reason to try to incentivize such activities or forms of creation since they happen quite naturally on their own. After all, has there really ever been any shortage of good clothing lines, hair styles, building and boat designs, or automotive body designs? </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/patently-absurdWed, 29 Dec 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererCopyright Enforcement Revisitedhttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/copyright-enforcement-revisited
<p>Today, the motion picture industry <a href="http://www.latimes.com/technology/la-fi-mpaa4nov04,1,7199732.story?coll=la-headlines-technology" target="_blank">announced</a> that it will begin filing copyright infringement lawsuits against individual file sharers. The industry claims its intellectual property (IP) rights have been violated by the uploading and sharing of movies on various peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. The movie industry&#8217;s targeted lawsuit strategy mimics the model previously employed by the music industry, which <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6991-2004Oct28.html" target="_blank">has filed over 6,000 lawsuits</a> against online file sharers since September 2003.</p>
<p>As was the case when the recording industry announced its lawsuit strategy, many observers will roundly castigate the movie studios for this decision. Indeed, this round of lawsuits will open a window onto the stances of various parties involved in debates on copyright. Opponents of these lawsuits should answer the tough question they often avoid: If not direct enforcement against infringers, what else? Whereas many of the <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/040305-tk.html">other enforcement strategies</a> the industry has pursued in recent years are excessive and unwise, targeted lawsuits against individuals who violate the copyright laws are probably the most sensible and just way of protecting copyrights without destroying new technologies in the process.</p>
<p><strong>Restating the Copyright Bargain.</strong> Copyright law in America can be thought of as a grand bargain between creators and the public. In essence, the bargain is an economic and social quid pro quo, which says: “If you create, we will reward you with a monopoly right to exploit your creation for a limited period of time.”</p>
<p>In many instances, however, this bargain is difficult to enforce. Nowhere is that more evident than in the case of file sharing on the Internet. The P2P phenomenon represents one of the most remarkable developments of our current technological age. Millions of citizens are able to share massive amounts of content with the rest of the world at the click of a button. Such a revolutionary technology was bound to have a downside. In this case, it was the widespread redistribution of copyrighted materials without compensation.</p>
<p>People who believe in unlimited sharing of copyrighted content must be ready to dispense with copyright law altogether. The sharing of information and culture is good, but if there are no limits on sharing whatsoever, copyright will fall. Some might greet that development with enthusiasm, arguing that creativity and innovation will happen in the absence of the copyright bargain. But there remain good reasons to believe that some level of copyright protection is essential to encourage creativity and ingenuity. People act on self-interest and will probably create more if they will profit from doing so.</p>
<p>Assuming this premise is still generally accepted, society must draw some lines to preserve the copyright bargain. If balance is the goal, as indeed it must be, then we need a model of enforcement that takes into consideration both the importance of compensating creators as well as the widespread exchange of ideas and culture. Undeniably, there will always be tension in this balance, but that doesn&#8217;t mean the balance isn&#8217;t worth preserving.</p>
<p><strong>Making the Tough Enforcement Choices.</strong> So, how do we strike the balance in the case of P2P file sharing? The first step will need to be a realization on the industry&#8217;s part that not all file sharing is preventable or even undesirable. There are great benefits that accrue to both users and the industry itself from the <em>limited</em> sharing of content. Just as a book shared between friends can encourage a reader to purchase more titles by an author, a song or movie shared online can encourage additional purchases.</p>
<p>But there is a world of difference between sharing a few copies of a song or a movie and uploading entire libraries of albums or movies. Someone who shares thousands of works, giving no consideration to the economic well-being of creators, has fundamentally broken their end of the copyright bargain. If they never compensate creators, file sharers should not be surprised when the industry slaps a lawsuit on them.</p>
<p>Again, many critics will blast the industry for this move. But what are their alternatives? Hopefully, copyright skeptics would agree that targeted individual lawsuits represent a vastly superior enforcement strategy to imposing contributory or vicariously liability on P2P software providers or Internet service providers (ISPs). There are good reasons to be concerned about such “shoot-the-middleman” strategies since they could compromise P2P functionality or deputize ISPs as copyright policemen. The industry favors secondary liability lawsuits, as well as the recently proposed <a href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_bills&docid=f:s2560is.txt.pdf" target="_blank">Induce Act</a>, for precisely that reason. It would be far easier for them to push the enforcement costs and headaches onto the middlemen instead of going after the end users themselves. Moreover, the middlemen have “deep pockets” whereas the individual file sharers do not.</p>
<p>Without categorically ruling out the application of contributory or vicarious liability-after all, did <a href="http://www.eff.org/IP/P2P/Napster/" target="_blank">Napster</a> really have <em>any</em> “substantial non-infringing uses”?-it would certainly seem preferable to avoid imposing secondary liability on third parties until we have exhausted all efforts to impose direct liability on end users. What makes many uncomfortable with contributory liability in general, and the Induce Act in particular, is that they could cast such a wide enforcement net. Overly broad constructions of contributory liability could result in the shuttering of networks or services with many other important uses.</p>
<p>Twenty years ago, for example, <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=464&invol=417" target="_blank">the Supreme Court struck down</a> (by just one vote) a misguided request by the movie industry to impose contributory liability on Sony for marketing Betamax video recording devices to the public. Imagine the lost innovation had the decision gone the opposite way. And imagine the lost sales for the movie industry itself had gotten its way in the Betamax decision! Even before the Betamax decision was handed down in 1984, the industry was making more money from home video rentals and sales than from first-run cinema receipts. That&#8217;s still the case today. The industry adjusted its business model in response to technological change and has profited handsomely as a result.</p>
<p>But what is most troubling about the hasty pursuit of secondary liability solutions is that they preceded the more justifiable approach to enforcement-targeted lawsuits against the most egregious file-sharers who cause the biggest problems. Enforce against them and then see what happens. It could be the case that enough targeted lawsuits will act as a sufficient deterrent to widespread file sharing in the future. More specifically, the lawsuits (as well as industry-led copyright <a href="http://www.respectcopyrights.org/content.html" target="_blank">education campaigns</a>) will hopefully instill in the minds of most file sharers that it is not acceptable to share massive amounts of IP with the rest of the world without compensating those who create that content in the first place.</p>
<p>Again, it all goes back to balance. Targeted copyright enforcement along the lines of what the music and movie industry are pursuing with their lawsuits against individuals file sharers provides the best way of ensuring baseline copyright protections. It is certainly preferable to a regime of overly broad contributory liability, or ham-handed legislative or regulatory responses.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/copyright-enforcement-revisitedThu, 04 Nov 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererTwilight for Traditional Telecom Regulation?http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/twilight-traditional-telecom-regulation
<p>Slowly but surely, change is coming to the world of telecommunications regulation. While it&#8217;s easy to get pessimistic about the sluggish pace of reform in the eight years since the not-so-revolutionary Telecommunications Act of 1996 passed, recent developments prove that central planning is finally starting to give way to a future of free markets and consumer choice.</p>
<p>Consider that, on October 14, the Federal Communications Commission quietly promulgated <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-253127A1.pdf" target="_blank">a new rule</a> allowing incumbent telephone companies to run “fiber-to-the-curb” (FTTC) lines within 500 feet of a customer&#8217;s home or office without fear of infrastructure-sharing mandates. (<a href="http://www.fcc.gov/Daily_Releases/Daily_Business/2003/db0821/FCC-03-36A1.pdf" target="_blank">A previous FCC decision</a> had already liberated “fiber-to-the-home” (FTTH), making it clear that telcos would not be forced to share lines that ran all the way to the customer&#8217;s premises.) On the same day, the FCC <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-253125A1.pdf" target="_blank">announced new rules</a> allowing energy and electricity carriers to offer Broadband over Power Line (BPL) service to their customers.</p>
<p>Those unfamiliar with the mysteries of modern communications regulation might reasonably ask: Why does the government have any say over these decisions to begin with? Shouldn&#8217;t these companies be free to offer consumers these innovative new services without asking “<a href="http://www.pff.org/issues-pubs/testimony/040428giffordtestimony.pdf" target="_blank">Mother, May I</a>”? Of course they should, but that&#8217;s not the way telecom regulation has long worked. In the eyes of many regulators, you are guilty of being a monopolist until proven innocent.</p>
<p>Yet, many regulators are finally coming to see that there is no denying the realities of our competitive communications marketplace. Shackling one set of players with unique rules no longer makes any sense in a world where every home or office has two or three wires to choose from, and wireless options too. As these two recent FCC decisions illustrate, the war over telecom is drawing to a close. But let&#8217;s step back for a moment and consider just how costly and unproductive this war has been.</p>
<p><strong>Leave No Telecom Consultant Behind.</strong> A few years ago, a rather remarkable advertising/public relations battle took place over a piece of telecom reform legislation sponsored by Representatives Billy Tauzin (R-La.) and John Dingell (D-Mich.). Ads both praising and blasting <a href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=107_cong_bills&docid=f:h1542ih.txt.pdf" target="_blank">the “Tauzin-Dingell” bill</a> littered the papers, television and radio, and even Internet websites. The industry combatants who waged this battle spent countless millions. A lot of lawyers, consultants and PR companies got very rich by coming up with crafty bumper-sticker slogans and slick-looking ads. The funny (or perhaps sad) thing is, despite all the time, energy, and money devoted it, few even knew what this fight was really all about.</p>
<p>Nonetheless, the fight <em>was</em> important. At stake was the question of how future communications and broadband markets, networks, and technologies would be regulated. Simply put, the <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/011214-tk.html">Tauzin-Dingell bill stood for</a> the proposition that it didn&#8217;t make sense to regulate the new stuff the same way we regulated the old stuff. More specifically, the bill proposed a regulatory quarantine of sorts between the rules governing old telecom networks and those for next generation high-speed broadband services. The Tauzin-Dingell bill exempted new investments and networks from the infrastructure sharing rules that governed old copper telecom systems.</p>
<p>The legislative war over Tauzin-Dingell was epic, but ultimately little came of it. After years of shelling from both sides, the guns fell silent on Capitol Hill as the battle shifted to other fronts, namely the FCC and the courts. Things weren&#8217;t much better at the FCC. Agency officials engaged in <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/030829-tk.html">protracted debates</a> over the regulations spawned by the Telecom Act. Among many other things, the question of the old rules-new networks problem was raised again. And, again, policymakers delayed giving the industry specific answers about what to expect.</p>
<p>Uncertainty ruled. Markets tanked. Carriers scratched their heads, wondering whether to deploy new systems. Many equipment vendors closed their factories. And Washington telecom lawyers and consultants continued to get very rich.</p>
<p><strong>The Beginning of the End.</strong> In March of this year, the D.C. Circuit Appeals Court <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/dc/001012b.pdf" target="_blank">said</a> enough is enough. The court tossed out most of the FCC&#8217;s revised infrastructure-sharing rules. In June, the Bush administration announced it would not seek Supreme Court review of that decision. Since then, the FCC has been trying to find a way to backpedal out of this mess and save face at the same time. Revised rules are slowly trickling out to comply with the Court&#8217;s order.</p>
<p>Which brings us back to the FCC&#8217;s decisions liberating new fiber deployment. The decisions free the telcos to play catch up to cable operators-much like the Tauzin-Dingell bill had proposed many years ago. But is it too little, too late? Cable already enjoys a sizeable lead in the high-speed broadband market, thanks in large part to more than $80 billion in investments cable operators made throughout the late 1990s to deploy all-digital, interactive broadband systems. That allowed cable to offer consumers faster broadband than what most telcos can provide, as well as voice services through voice over Internet protocol (VoIP). Meanwhile, cable companies still have plenty of video services, including high-definition TV (HDTV) channels. Telcos don&#8217;t have comparable video services to offer their customers.</p>
<p>Thus, cable has the infrastructure in place today to offer consumers the Holy Grail of communications service-voice, video, and data bundled into one bill. And cable continues to enjoy freedom from infrastructure-sharing mandates. By contrast, the telcos have a core competency in voice services, but they are struggling to catch up in the data business and have few video offerings ready to go. Worse yet for them, <a href="http://www.newsfactor.com/story.xhtml?story_title=Consumers-Give-up-Land-Lines-for-Cell-Phones&story_id=27822" target="_blank">wireless</a> and <a href="http://www.fortune.com/fortune/technology/articles/0,15114,582208,00.html" target="_blank">VoIP providers</a> are cannibalizing their voice market. Despite this, the telcos remain buried underneath mountains of regulatory mandates that require them to share much of their infrastructure with rivals. Hardly seems fair when you think about it.</p>
<p>More than five years ago, policymakers had a chance to rectify this unjust regulatory asymmetry with the Tauzin-Dingell bill, but they delayed and continued to delegate the important decisions to the FCC and the courts. Consequently, more than eight years after the passage of the Telecom Act, we&#8217;re still struggling to get out of this regulatory mess.</p>
<p>Though the war is not over yet, many important battles have been won. With the FCC&#8217;s latest BPL order, the “freedom for fiber” decisions, and other proceedings like the pending <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-28A1.pdf" target="_blank">IP-enabled services rulemaking</a>, there is a chance to make more than just a clean break with the past. There is the chance that we can close the book on the traditional public utility, litigation-oriented regulatory regime and replace it with a marketplace governed by property rights, pricing freedom, and voluntary contracts. The old regime is not dead yet, but its days are numbered.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/twilight-traditional-telecom-regulationMon, 25 Oct 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererHoward Stern and the Future of Media Censorshiphttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/howard-stern-future-media-censorship
<p>Radio “shock jock” Howard Stern is <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10953-2004Oct6.html" target="_blank">bolting to satellite radio</a>, signing a five-year deal with SIRIUS beginning in 2006. His transition from broadcast to satellite radio signals a tectonic shift in the center of media power away from traditional providers to new types of outlets and technologies. That much everyone has probably already figured out. What&#8217;s more interesting, however, is what all this means for the future of media regulation by Washington lawmakers.</p>
<p>Consider for a moment just how bad this past year has been for media.</p>
<p>It all got started with last year&#8217;s brouhaha about media being “too big” or not diverse enough. Although <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/040630-tk.html">citizens have access to</a> unprecedented amounts of news, information, and entertainment, many in Congress and at the FCC have been pushing for increased regulation of media business practices and ownership patterns. Some in Congress posit that there is an inverse relationship between media size and quality and would use economic regulation as a back-door way to regulate content.</p>
<p>Then, in the middle of this heated debate, Janet Jackson did something really stupid in front of a few million television viewers. The censorship hounds were unleashed. The FCC <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/040625-tk.html">started handing out</a> record fines and Congress whipped up legislation to greatly ramp up those fines. By just one vote, a Senate amendment was defeated in committee that would have imposed these rules and fines not just on broadcasters, but on cable and satellite providers too. Another Senate amendment proposed the regulation of “excessive violence” in media.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the threat of regulation led some broadcasters to dump popular radio personalities, including Stern when Clear Channel dropped him from their stations. Most recently, the media bashing game has taken on an even more disturbing aspect with the suggestion by some Republicans, like House Energy and Commerce Chairman Joe Barton (R-TX), that CBS News’ newsgathering tactics and motivations should be the subject of an official investigation in the wake of the “<a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/040930-tk-2.html">Rathergate</a>” documents scandal.</p>
<p>So, let&#8217;s step back and take stock of where we stand today. Lawmakers and regulators are proposing regulation of the underlying business practices or ownership structures of the press, the content the press airs, and even the newsgathering methods and practices they utilize.</p>
<p>Anyone who cares about the First Amendment and press freedom should find this chilling. Apparently, “Congress shall make no law” abridging press freedom now has several caveats. Congress shall make no law <em>unless they think media is “too big,”</em> or <em>unless they don&#8217;t like some of the content they see or hear,</em> or <em>unless they want to investigate newsgathering practices by a major news anchor many congressmen have long despised</em>.</p>
<p>Of course, many members of Congress have long expressed casual disregard for the First Amendment. They have spent the last decade, for example, attempting to slap a variety of content controls on the Internet. Luckily, the courts continue to slap down congressional overreach when it comes to the ‘Net, stressing how much different it is than older press outlets and technologies.</p>
<p>But, while we can be glad that the Internet and cyberspace have thus far been able to evade government controls, a two-tier system of First Amendment freedom is neither sensible nor sustainable. Is it fair, for example, that CBS.com gets the gold standard of press freedom while CBS television or radio gets second-class citizenship rights in terms of First Amendment protections? If CBS airs a clip on its stations deemed “indecent” by just three of the five FCC regulators, they get fined. But if that same clip is broadcast on the ‘Net, those regulators can&#8217;t touch it. Does that make any sense?</p>
<p>At some point in the near future the illogical regulatory distinction between traditional broadcast and new media will be challenged in the courts. And Howard Stern may provide us with the test case. He is jumping over to satellite radio with the expectation he will be free to speak his mind. Today, that is true, but will it be in the future?</p>
<p>While the Senate failed by one vote to pass the amendment imposing traditional “indecency” fines and regulation on cable and satellite networks, the fight is hardly over. Several members of Congress such as Rep. Barton, have hinted that they will continue to push for traditional broadcast regulation to be imposed on new, subscriber-based media outlets. If Congress or the FCC try to impose traditional content regulations on Stern-or anyone else operating in the new media space (cable, satellite or the Internet)-it will force the constitutional question of whether government can and should censor the media in the future.</p>
<p>Whether Howard knows it or not, he may be ushering in a revolution in censorship policy and First Amendment law.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/howard-stern-future-media-censorshipMon, 11 Oct 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererSen. McCain's Plan to Liberate the Broadcast Spectrumhttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/sen-mccains-plan-liberate-broadcast-spectrum
<p>Last week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34537-2004Sep19.html?nav=headlines" target="_blank">introduced</a> an important new bill dealing with the digital television (DTV) transition and the vexing question of how to get broadcasters to return their old analog spectrum. The bill, <a href="http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=108_cong_bills&docid=f:s2820is.txt.pdf" target="_blank">S. 2820</a>, proposed a controversial new policy ($1 billion in subsidies for set-top converter boxes to help some households convert to DTV) to correct for a controversial old policy (the misguided giveaway of $10-$100 billion worth of free spectrum to the broadcast industry). The bill also demanded that broadcasters return their old analog spectrum by 2009, two years after the original deadline. While not the optimal policy approach, the new McCain bill offered a quick way out of the DTV industrial policy fiasco and would have helped free up massive amounts of valuable spectrum for other important wireless uses. Unfortunately, however, the Senate Commerce Committee has already voted 13-9 to water-down the McCain bill and let broadcasters hold onto most the spectrum they were suppose to return.</p>
<p><strong>A Misguided Giveaway.</strong> By way of background, as part of the Telecommunications Act of 1996, every broadcaster in the U.S. was loaned <em>free of charge</em> a second 6 MHz block of spectrum to help them make the DTV transition. (Every broadcaster already possessed a 6 MHz license which they use to transmit analog broadcast signals to rooftop antennas). What was so scandalous about the award of the second 6 MHz license was that so many other high-tech companies were salivating at the prospect of bidding large sums for that spectrum and putting it to alternative uses. America might already have had a wireless broadband infrastructure if Congress had not given all this beach-front spectrum to the broadcasters for little more than a promise that they would return their old analog spectrum licenses by 2007.</p>
<p>But even the return of that old analog spectrum remains uncertain. A subsequent DTV decision gave broadcasters the right to transmit analog signals on their old 6 MHz license until 2007, <em>or until 85 percent of Americans had made the migration to digital television</em>. Only then would they have to return the old spectrum to the government. Getting to that 85 percent threshold is taking longer than most policy makers expected, with fewer than 10 percent of American homes possessing DTV receiving equipment. Consequently, barring additional government intervention to correct for this previous mistake, it is going to take a lot longer-some experts estimate perhaps until 2020-before the 85 percent threshold is met.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the opportunity costs associated with this giveaway have grown larger with each passing year. Countless other wireless service providers are being denied the opportunity to use that same spectrum for alternative applications. Consequently, Americans are being denied access to important wireless services of both the commercial and public safety variety. Equally troubling is that fact that in an attempt to keep the DTV transition from derailing entirely, Congress and the FCC keep imposing additional mandates on other industries. For example, in August 2002, the FCC mandated that television set manufacturers include <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/020805-tk.html">digital tuners</a> in all their new sets by 2006, even though the tuners will add more than $200 to the cost of each new television. Likewise, there&#8217;s talk of new “digital must-carry” mandates on cable providers. And a new “<a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/031113-tk.html">broadcast flag</a>” regulatory mechanism has been mandated by the FCC in the name of protecting digital TV signals from copyright infringement.</p>
<p><strong>The Necessity of an Escape Plan.</strong> With this industrial policy fiasco spiraling out of control, Congress must find a way to get out of this mess. Policymakers need to realize that it is vital they find a way to free up at least some of the valuable spectrum they have given to the broadcasters as quickly as possible. Countless other wireless providers are starving for access to any spectrum they can get, and the broadcast spectrum is a mother lode of beach-front quality spectrum. But getting it back will be tricky since most broadcasters are now making a good faith effort to make the digital transition and many consumers have purchased the hardware (TVs, set-top boxes, antennas) needed to receive DTV. Congress can&#8217;t just pull the rug out from underneath the transition.</p>
<p>The good news is that there are two very reliable alternative DTV delivery paths available to which both broadcasters and the public can turn: cable and satellite. Almost 90 percent of American homes already subscribe to cable or satellite systems and these providers made a natural digital migration many years ago. Consequently, the DTV signals that traditional broadcasters want to get to the public can be delivered via those cable and satellite systems once retransmission deals are cut <em>voluntarily</em>. Must-carry mandates should not be imposed for this to occur. Cable and satellite operators want that valuable DTV programming that traditional broadcasters offer, so they will find a way to contract for carriage.</p>
<p>But there remains one big problem: What should Congress do about the small percentage of households, many of which are elderly or low-income, that do not have a cable or satellite subscription? Politicians will be extremely sensitive to the needs of this group, which continues to rely on over-the-air broadcast signals and rooftop antennas to receive television signals. And broadcasters will likely employ “leave no TV viewer behind” rhetoric to strike fear in the heart of Congress.</p>
<p><strong>McCain&#8217;s Practical Solution.</strong> Sen. McCain-a long-standing critic of the DTV spectrum giveaway-is eager to reclaim the old spectrum for both commercial and public safety uses, but he understands the political problem of leaving some viewers stranded. Few members of Congress will sign off on any spectrum take-back plan that results in some homes losing their TV signals. To account for this, McCain&#8217;s bill would provide set-top box (STB) subsidies to low-income households who continue to rely on analog over-the-air signals, allowing them to move over to cable and satellite systems immediately. The price tag for the STB subsidy is steep-$1 billion-but the money would ultimately come from the revenues generated from auctioning the returned spectrum, which will generate tens of billions.</p>
<p>It is regrettable that it has come to this, but the McCain plan may be the only way out of an industrial policy fiasco that has cost America untold billions in terms of lost wireless innovation. Again, Congress’ top priority should be liberalization of the broadcast spectrum band to open up a vast new frontier of spectrum for wireless innovation. The only other realistic alternative is simply to let the broadcasters keep both licenses and use them-and more importantly, sell them-for whatever purpose they wish. Such a policy would encourage the broadcasters to eventually release much of their valuable spectrum on the secondary market. But many critics will find this additional giveaway to the broadcasters unconscionable, especially considering the princely sums sale of the spectrum will net. Just surrendering and giving the broadcasters all the spectrum will be viewed by many as an unjust windfall. But giving the broadcasters the equivalent of property rights in both licenses would allow them to realize the opportunity costs of hoarding that spectrum and then move it to its highest and best use.</p>
<p>The McCain bill offered a second-best way out of the DTV mess, but the Senate Commerce Committee&#8217;s recent vote to force only a few stations to return their old spectrum largely guts McCain&#8217;s effort. Consequently, the open-ended DTV transition remains intact and countless companies and consumers are again denied access to valuable spectrum needed for other purposes.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/sen-mccains-plan-liberate-broadcast-spectrumThu, 30 Sep 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererThe "Rathergate" Incident: Remembering Why Separation of Press and State Is Vitalhttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/rathergate-incident-remembering-why-separation-press-state-is-vital
<p>Should government police the quality and integrity of television journalism? That question has come to the fore recently as members of Congress consider investigating Dan Rather and CBS News’ admission that they relied on questionable documents in a report critical of President Bush&#8217;s military service record. The controversy-now referred to as “Rathergate” by many-<a href="http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C200409%5CPOL20040915c.html" target="_blank">has led some Republicans in Congress to suggest</a> that hearings are needed into this matter. Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX), chairman of the House Commerce Committee, originally rejected such calls, but has apparently relented and now says that hearings will likely occur sometime after the presidential election.</p>
<p>What&#8217;s wrong with that? Nothing, if you live in Russia. Government investigations or intrusions into the newsgathering business are routine in countries like Russia, which has never held the separation of press and state to be inviolable. While no journalist in America will go to jail or lose the right to report because of the Rathergate incident, the idea of Congress investigating newsgathering scandals is troubling because it could have a subtle but real chilling effect on reporting.</p>
<p>While some lawmakers will label this a simple effort to “get to the bottom” of a colossal journalistic blunder, who says that&#8217;s any of their business to begin with? The First Amendment was pretty clear about Congress not making any laws abridging the freedom of the press and, by extension, lawmakers have no right poking their noses into the way the press does business, even when they screw up as badly as Rather and CBS News have in this case.</p>
<p><strong>Checks and Balances on Media.</strong> Importantly, this controversy has shown the remarkable effectiveness of media to police itself and, in particular, the ability of new media outlets to act as a check on the old guard. Dan Rather&#8217;s original <em>60 Minutes II</em> report wasn&#8217;t even a few hours old before many Internet websites and independent web <a href="http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/politics/la-na-blog12sep12,1,2645873.story?coll=la-news-politics-national" target="_blank">blogs were buzzing with critical commentary</a>. Soon, the trickle of online criticism turned into a flood, and everyone was debating the issue online, on the radio, on cable and satellite TV, in newspapers and magazines, and, eventually, even on CBS itself. <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/040630-tk.html">The amazing diversity of modern media outlets</a> has allowed investigative journalism to become a full-time sport and given the media unprecedented ability to police itself. The credibility of Rather and CBS News has been damaged potentially beyond repair because of such scrutiny and criticism.</p>
<p>Consider, by contrast, how this incident might have played out thirty years ago when just three networks dominated television news and no cable, satellite, or online outlets were available. Newspaper and magazine journalists were the most reliable (and perhaps only) check on suspect reporting by TV news organizations at the time. But many errors were probably never caught. Today, thanks to the relentless march of new communications and media technologies, citizens have access to hundreds of other outlets and can, on occasion, even help break news themselves. This is a truly remarkable development that many in government still fail to appreciate, but it has ushered in a veritable revolution in the way news is gathered, delivered-and as we see with the Rathergate controversy-reviewed and verified.</p>
<p>It is unlikely that any other society has ever had such a diversity of checks and balances in place to guard against misrepresentations or misreporting of the facts. Indeed, what is most remarkable about the Rathergate controversy is its duration. Rather and CBS admitted their mistake just 11 days after the original report aired. Thirty years ago, it would have likely taken much longer for the facts to surface, if they did at all.</p>
<p><strong>The Never-ending Game of Congressional Media Bashing.</strong> Still, some members of Congress and even the general public will be hungry for a more “official” investigation into the matter if for no other reason than to stick it to Rather, CBS, and the media in general. Media bashing is an old sport for many members of Congress, who constantly deride what they regard as biased reporting or objectionable content. And 2004 has been a banner year for those in Congress and at the Federal Communications Commission who have been hungry for a renewed censorship crusade. Legislation <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/040625-tk.html">to increase fines</a> for “indecent” content and “<a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/040810-tk.html">excessively violent</a>” programming is pending in Congress. And the FCC has <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/TV/09/07/jackson.indecency.reut/" target="_blank">stepped up censorship efforts</a> under pressure from Congress.</p>
<p>The Rathergate incident plays right into the hands of those who want to take another shot at “cracking down” on the media. While most members of Congress realize that the First Amendment limits their ability to directly censor media, they have become skilled at the art of “regulation by raised eyebrow.” Sometimes just hauling a few people before a congressional committee and haranguing them is enough to send a message: if you don&#8217;t play ball with Congress and change what you air, you might end up facing regulation on some other part of your business, like media ownership controls or <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/040420-tk-2.html">re-imposition of the Fairness Doctrine</a>.</p>
<p>Such indirect forms of censorship through regulatory blackmail are every bit as insidious as direct forms of regulation. In the Rathergate case, even if some members of Congress say they just want to “get to the bottom” of the incident, we must not allow the wall between press and state to be breached. It could open the door to subtle forms of censorship and result in a loss of press freedom and independence.</p>
<p>Congress must resist the temptation to sit in judgment of media performance precisely because public officials are armed with the coercive power of government. While journalists are supposed to play a watchdog role and serve as independent check on public abuses and errors by public officials, the reverse is most definitely not the case.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/rathergate-incident-remembering-why-separation-press-state-is-vitalThu, 30 Sep 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererOvercoming Mythology in the Debate over Media Ownershiphttp://www.cato.org/publications/congressional-testimony/overcoming-mythology-debate-over-media-ownership
<p>Good morning, my name is Adam Thierer and I serve as Director of Telecommunications Studies at the Cato Institute. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your invitation to testify here this morning on the important issue of media ownership regulation. This hearing is especially timely for me since I have a new book on this issue due out early next year entitled, “Media Myths: Making Sense of the Debate over Media Ownership.”</p>
<p>I chose that title because I have come to the conclusion that the debate over media ownership is being driven more by myth than reality. That is, while critics of media liberalization have had great success employing heated rhetoric and extremely emotional rationales for media regulation, claims about a lack of “diversity,” the end of “localism,” or the supposed “death of democracy” simply do not square with reality.</p>
<p>Objective facts reveal that such rhetoric and claims are baseless. Indeed, by all impartial measures, citizens are better off today than they have ever been before. Regardless of what the underlying business structures or ownership patterns look like, the real question in this debate must be this: “Do citizens have more news, information, and entertainment choices at their disposal today than in the past?” The answer to that question is unambiguously “yes.”</p>
<p>There are 7 leading myths about modern media. I&#8217;ll quickly summarize each one for you.</p>
<p><strong>Debunking the Media Myths</strong><br />
<br />
The first, and probably most commonly repeated myth, is that diversity will disappear absent extensive government regulation of the media. The reality, however, could not be more different. Today&#8217;s media environment is more diverse than ever before and is characterized by information abundance, not scarcity. Citizens enjoy more news and entertainment options than at any other point in history. To the extent there is a media diversity problem today, it is that citizens suffer from “information overload.” The number of media options has become so overwhelming that most of us struggle to manage all the information at our disposal. Consider that in 1979 most households had 6 or fewer local television stations to choose from, but today the average U.S. household receives 7 broadcast television networks and an average of 102 cable or satellite channels per home.<sup><a name="1" href="#1a">1</a></sup> Also, the number of radio stations in America has roughly doubled from about 6,700 in 1970 to almost 13,500 today. And there are more magazines and periodicals being produced now than at any time in our nation&#8217;s history. In 2003, there were 17,254 magazines produced up from 14,302 in 1993. <sup><a name="2" href="#2a">2</a></sup></p>
<p>A second common myth is that “localism” in media is disappearing. The truth is, while we do not really know exactly how much local fare citizens demand, citizens still receive a wealth of information about developments in their communities. That is, although citizens are increasingly opting for more sources of national news and entertainment, local information and programming are still popular and will not disappear in a deregulated media marketplace.</p>
<p>The third myth concerns concentration and the mistaken belief that only a few companies control the entire media universe. Contrary to this widely circulated myth, the media marketplace is vigorously competitive and not significantly more concentrated than in past decades. A McKinsey & Company analyst recently noted that “There are more than 100 media companies worldwide&#8230; and entertainment and media are still fragmented compared with other industries such as pharmaceuticals and aerospace.”<sup><a name="3" href="#3a">3</a></sup> An FCC survey of various media markets across America from 1960 to 2000 also showed that, “Collectively, the number of media outlets and owners increased tremendously over the 40-year period,” with an average of a 200 percent increase in the number of outlets and a 140 percent increase in the number of owners.<sup><a name="4" href="#4a">4</a></sup> Media expert Eli Noam of Columbia University has nicely summarized why we must understand that “bigness” is a relative term in media: “[W]hile the fish in the pond have grown in size, the pond did grow too, and there have been new fish and new ponds.”<sup><a name="5" href="#5a">5</a></sup> But, in any event, competition and concentration are not mutually exclusive. Citizens can have more choices even as the ownership grows slightly more concentrated as it has in some sectors in recent years.</p>
<p>The fourth myth involves assertions about the future of our democracy somehow being at risk. These arguments strike me as quite preposterous since increased media availability and communications connectivity have given Americans the ability to learn and debate more about our democracy than ever before. More importantly, civil discourse and a healthy democracy are the product of a free and open society unconstrained by government restrictions on media structures or content. If government can simply ordain any ownership structures or business arrangements it wishes in the name of serving “democracy,” then it raises serious censorship concerns.</p>
<p>A fifth myth is that regulation is needed to preserve high quality journalism and entertainment. I find these arguments very troubling since, at root, media quality is a subjective matter. Government should have no say over, or even attempt to influence the quality of news or entertainment in America. The good news, however, is that with so many media outlets available today, citizens have a wide range of options from which to choose, meaning they can decide for themselves what level of “quality” they desire.</p>
<p>A sixth myth is that the First Amendment justifies extensive media ownership controls, or can be used as a regulatory tool to mandate access to media outlets. This is, without doubt, the most dangerous of all the media myths. In reality, the First Amendment was not written as a constraint on private speech or actions, but rather as a direct restraint on government actions as they relate to speech. If the First Amendment is to retain its force as a bulwark against government control of the press, it cannot be used to justify ownership rules or “media access” mandates.</p>
<p>A seventh and final myth is that new technologies or media outlets, including the Internet, have little bearing on this debate or cannot be used as justification for relaxing existing media ownership rules at all. To the contrary, new technologies and outlets do have an important relationship to this debate and call into question the wisdom of existing media ownership restrictions. In particular, the rise of the Internet and the World Wide Web is radically changing the nature of modern media. (Anyone who thinks differently might want to ask Dan Rather what he thinks about the impact of new technologies on traditional media!) With 72% of Americans now online and spending an average of nine hours weekly on the Internet<sup><a name="6" href="#6a">6</a></sup> surfing through the 170 terabytes of information availalble online-which is seventeen times the size of the Library of Congress print collections<sup><a name="7" href="#7a">7</a></sup>-I do not see how anyone can seriously argue that the Internet is not fundamentally transforming our media universe.</p>
<p>More generally, my research finds that all media compete in a broad sense and that citizens frequently substitute one type of media for another. What else explains cable stations stealing so much audience share from traditional broadcasters, or that 88% of Americans now subscribe to cable and satellite TV even though “free, over-the-air” television remains at their disposal?<sup><a name="8" href="#8a">8</a></sup> What else explains how satellite radio, an industry that did not even exist prior to December 2001, today boasts over 2 million subscribers and is rapidly eating into traditional radio&#8217;s market share? Or the fact that millions of Americans purchase daily editions of national newspapers such as the USA Today, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times? In fact, 49 percent of The New York Times’ daily circulation is now outside the New York area and it offers home delivery in 275 markets.<sup><a name="9" href="#9a">9</a></sup> Such statistics reveal a healthy, competitive market at work; a market in which citizens exercise their right to be as finicky as they want in substituting one media option or outlet for another.</p>
<p><strong>Conclusion</strong><br />
<br />
Our media world has changed, and changed in almost every way for the better. To the extent there was ever a “Golden Age” of American media, we are living in it today. There has never been a time in our nation&#8217;s history when citizens had access to more media outlets, more news and information, or more entertainment. This conclusion is supported by a solid factual record. Advocates of media regulation, by contrast, continue to base their case for government regulation on emotional appeals and baseless “Chicken Little” doomsday scenarios.</p>
<p>In such an age of abundance, the question of who owns what, or how much they own, is irrelevant. No matter how large any given media outlet is today, it is ultimately just one of hundreds of sources of news, information and entertainment that we have at our disposal. “Indeed,” as the FCC concluded when revising these rules, “the question confronting media companies today is not whether they will be able to dominate the distribution of news and information in any market, but whether they will be able to be heard at all among the cacophony of voices vying for the attention of Americans.”<sup><a name="10" href="#10a">10</a></sup></p>
<p>I completely agree with the FCC. The media world has changed and so must the rules that govern it. Thank you for inviting me here today to discuss the facts about media in America.</p>
<p><br />
</p>
<a href="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table1hires.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table1.gif" alt="Table 1. The Media Universe of Yesterday and Today" width="400" height="824" style="border: 1px;" /></a><br />
<p><br />
</p>
<a href="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table2hires.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table2.gif" alt="Table 2. Media Outlet Ownership in Select Markets" width="400" height="300" style="border: 1px;" /></a><br />
<p><br />
</p>
<a href="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table3hires.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table3.gif" alt="Table 3. S-Curves for Various Technologies" width="400" height="287" style="border: 1px;" /></a><br />
<p><br />
</p>
<a href="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table4hires.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table4.gif" alt="Table 4. The Relentless March of Technology" width="400" height="478" style="border: 1px;" /></a><br />
<p><br />
</p>
<a href="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table5hires.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table5.gif" alt="Table 5. Media Trends of Yesterday and Today" width="400" height="391" style="border: 1px;" /></a><br />
<p><br />
</p>
<table border="1" style="margin: auto;">
<tr>
<td style="width: 400px;"><strong>Table 6: The Expanding Video Programming Marketplace On Cable and Satellite TV</strong><br />
<strong>News:</strong> <em>CNN, Fox News, MSNBC, C-Span, C-Span 2, C-Span 3, BBC America</em><br />
<strong>Sports:</strong> <em>ESPN, ESPN News, Fox Sports, TNT, NBA TV, NFL Network, Golf Channel, Speed Channel, Outdoor Life Network</em><br />
<strong>Weather:</strong> <em>The Weather Channel</em><br />
<strong>Home Renovation:</strong> <em>Home & Garden Television, The Learning Channel, DIY</em><br />
<strong>Educational:</strong> <em>The History Channel, The Biography Channel (A&E), The Learning Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic Channel, Animal Planet</em><br />
<strong>Travel:</strong> <em>The Travel Channel, National Geographic Channel</em><br />
<strong>Financial:</strong> <em>CNNfn, CNBC, Bloomberg Television</em><br />
<strong>Shopping:</strong> <em>The Shopping Channel, Home Shopping Network, QVC</em><br />
<strong>Female-oriented:</strong> <em>WE, Oxygen, Lifetime</em><br />
<strong>Male-oriented:</strong> <em>Spike TV</em><br />
<strong>Family / Children-oriented:</strong> <em>Nickelodeon, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network, WAM (movie channel for 8-16 year olds), Noggin (2-5 years)/The N Channel (9-14 years), PBS Kids, Hallmark Channel, Discovery Kids, Animal Planet, ABC Family, Boomerang, The Family Channel (FAM), HBO Family</em><br />
<strong>African-American:</strong> <em>BET, Black Starz!</em><br />
<strong>Foreign / Foreign Language:</strong> <em>Telemundo (Spanish), Univision (Spanish), Deutsche Welle (German), BBC America (British), TV Asia, ZEE-TV Asia (South Asia) ART: Arab Radio and Television, The Filipino Channel (Philippines), Saigon Broadcasting Network (Vietnam), The International Channel, HBO Latino</em><br />
<strong>Religious:</strong> <em>Trinity Broadcasting Network, The Church Channel (TBN), World Harvest Television, Eternal Word Television Network</em><br />
<strong>Music:</strong> <em>MTV, MTV 2, VH1, VH1 Classic, Fuse, Country Music Television, Great American Country, Gospel Music Television Network</em><br />
<strong>Movies:</strong> <em>HBO, Showtime, Cinemax, Starz, Encore, The Movie Channel, Turner Classic Movies, AMC, IFC, Sundance, Bravo, (Action, Westerns, Mystery, Love Stories, etc&#8230;), Flix, Other or General Interest Programming: TBS, USA Network, TNT, SciFi Channel</em><br />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><br />
<br />
</p>
<a href="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table7ahires.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table7a.gif" alt="Table 7. 2003 New Magazine Launches by Interest Category" width="400" height="207" style="border: 1px;" /></a><br />
<p><br />
</p>
<a href="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table8hires.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table8.gif" alt="Table 8. A Clear Channel Radio Monopoly?" width="400" height="274" style="border: 1px;" /></a><br />
<p><br />
</p>
<table border="1" style="margin: auto;">
<tr>
<td style="width: 400px;"><strong>Table 9: Internet Radio Stations</strong><br />
<strong>LaunchCast</strong> <a href="http://radio.yahoo.com" target="_blank">radio.yahoo.com</a><br />
<strong>Rhapsody</strong> <a href="http://www.listen.com" target="_blank">www.listen.com</a><br />
<strong>Live 365</strong> <a href="http://www.live365.com" target="_blank">www.live365.com</a><br />
<strong>Net Radio.com</strong> <a href="http://www.netradio.com" target="_blank">www.netradio.com</a><br />
<strong>eoRadio</strong> <a href="http://www.eoradio.com" target="_blank">www.eoradio.com</a><br />
<strong>Totally Radio</strong> <a href="http://www.totallyradio.com" target="_blank">www.totallyradio.com</a><br />
<strong>Soul Patrol</strong> <a href="http://www.soul-patrol.net" target="_blank">www.soul-patrol.net</a><br />
<strong>SnakeNet Metal Radio</strong> <a href="http://www.snakenetmetalradio.com" target="_blank">www.snakenetmetalradio.com</a><br />
<strong>Recovery Net</strong> <a href="http://www.recoverynetradio.com" target="_blank">www.recoveryradio.com</a><br />
<strong>Beethoven.com</strong> <a href="http://www.beethoven.com" target="_blank">www.beethoven.com</a><br />
<strong>Web-Radio</strong> <a href="http://www.web-radio.fm" target="_blank">www.web-radio.com</a><br />
<strong>Radio@Netscape</strong> <a href="http://www.spinner.com" target="_blank">www.spinner.com</a><br />
<strong>NPR Online</strong> <a href="http://www.npr.org" target="_blank">www.npr.org</a><br />
<strong>VH1’s SonicNet.com</strong> <a href="http://www.sonicnet.com" target="_blank">www.sonicnet.com</a><br />
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><br />
</p>
<a href="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table10hires.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table10.gif" alt="Table 10. Do the "Big 3" own everything?" width="400" height="286" style="border: 1px;" /></a><br />
<p><br />
</p>
<a href="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table11hires.html" target="_blank"><img src="http://www.cato.org/092804images/table11.gif" alt="Table 11. Cable Ratings Share Now Tops Broadcasters" width="400" height="285" style="border: 1px;" /></a><br />
<p><br />
</p>
<table border="1" style="margin: auto;">
<tr>
<td style="width: 400px;"><strong>Table 12: An Assortment of Media Fun Facts</strong><br />
<strong><em>General Media Facts or Trends:</em></strong>
<ul>
<li>“A weekday edition of the New York Times contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in seventeenth-century England.”<sup><a name="11" href="#11a">11</a></sup> A 1987 report estimated that more new information has been produced within the last 30 years than in the last 5000.<sup><a name="12" href="#12a">12</a></sup></li>
<li>According to Ben Bagdikian, there are 37,000 different media outlets in America. That number jumps to 54,000 if all weeklies, semiweeklies, advertising weeklies and all periodicals are included, and to 178,000 if all “information industries” are included. And yet Bagdikian is a leading critic of media deregulation and the title of his most recent book is The New Media Monopoly!<sup><a name="13" href="#13a">13</a></sup></li>
<li>An FCC survey of large and small media markets across America from 1960 to 2000 revealed that, “Collectively, the number of media outlets and owners increased tremendously over the 40-year period,” with an average of a 200 percent increase in the number of outlets and a 140 percent increase in the number of owners.<sup><a name="14" href="#14a">14</a></sup></li>
<li>By 2007, the average American will spend 3,874 hours per year using major consumer media, an increase of 792 hours per year from the 3,082 hours per year that the average person spent using consumer media in 1977.<sup><a name="15" href="#15a">15</a></sup></li>
<li>As of 2003, household penetration rates for various new media and communications technologies were very high and growing fast: VCR (88%); DVD (50%); DBS (24%); cell phones (70%); personal computers (66%); Internet access (75%). With the exception of VCRs, none of these technologies were in American homes in 1980.<sup><a name="16" href="#16a">16</a></sup></li>
<li>In 2002, the average consumer spent $212 for basic cable, $100 for books, $110 for home videos, $71 for music recordings, $58 for daily newspapers, $45 for magazines, $45 for online Internet services, and $36 on movies.<sup><a name="17" href="#17a">17</a></sup></li>
<li>A three minute coast-to-coast long-distance phone call which cost roughly $1.35 in 1970 only cost 15 cents in 2003.<sup><a name="18" href="#18a">18</a></sup></li>
<li class="c1"><br />
</li>
</ul>
<strong><em>Television / Video Competition:</em></strong>
<ul>
<li>88% of Americans now subscribe to cable and satellite “pay TV” sources even though “free, over-the-air” television remains at their disposal.<sup><a name="19" href="#19a">19</a></sup></li>
<li>The FCC has found that, “In 1979, the vast majority of households had six or fewer local television stations to choose from, three of which were typically affiliated with a broadcast network. Today the average U.S. household receives seven broadcast television networks and an average of 102 channels per home.”<sup><a name="20" href="#20a">20</a></sup></li>
<li>There are more than 308 satellite-delivered national non-broadcast television networks available for carriage over cable, DBS and other systems today. The FCC concludes, “We are moving to a system served by literally hundreds of networks serving all conceivable interests.”<sup><a name="21" href="#21a">21</a></sup></li>
<li class="c1"><br />
</li>
</ul>
<strong><em>Newspapers and Magazines:</em></strong>
<ul>
<li>In 1900, the average newspaper had only 8 pages.<sup><a name="22" href="#22a">22</a></sup> In the year 2000, by contrast, according to the Encarta encyclopedia, “Daily general-circulation newspapers average[d] about 65 pages during the week and more than 200 pages in the weekend edition.”<sup><a name="23" href="#23a">23</a></sup></li>
<li>There were 17,254 magazines produced in 2003, up from 14,302 in 1993. “For virtually every human interest, there is a magazine.”<sup><a name="24" href="#24a">24</a></sup></li>
<li>There were 440 new magazine launches in 2003, up from 289 new launches in 2002.<sup><a name="25" href="#25a">25</a></sup> Another source puts the number much higher at 949 new launches last year.<sup><a name="26" href="#26a">26</a></sup></li>
<li class="c1"><br />
</li>
</ul>
<strong><em>Radio:</em></strong>
<ul>
<li>The number of radio stations in America has roughly doubled since 1970. As of March 2004, there were 13,486 radio stations in America, up from 6,751 in January 1970.</li>
<li>Satellite radio (XM & Sirius), an industry that did not even exist prior to December 2001, today boasts over 2 million subscribers nationwide according to company reports.</li>
<li class="c1"><br />
</li>
</ul>
<strong><em>Internet / Online Services:</em></strong>
<ul>
<li>72% of Americans are now online and spend an average of nine hours weekly on the Internet.<sup><a name="27" href="#27a">27</a></sup></li>
<li>The World Wide Web contains about 170 terabytes of information on its surface; in volume this is seventeen times the size of the Library of Congress print collections.<sup><a name="28" href="#28a">28</a></sup></li>
<li>Although less than 10 years old, online auction giant E-Bay has grown so massive that it now handles more daily trading traffic than the Nasdaq Stock Market according to CEO Meg Whitman.<sup><a name="29" href="#29a">29</a></sup></li>
<li>Online search giant Google recently reported that its collection of 6 billion items includes “4.28 billion web pages, 880 million images, 845 million Usenet messages, and a growing collection of book-related information pages.”<sup><a name="30" href="#30a">30</a></sup></li>
<li>The Internet Archive “Wayback Machine” (www.archive.org) offers 30 billion web pages archived from 1996 to the present. It contains approximately 1 petabyte of data and is currently growing at a rate of 20 terabytes per month. The site notes, “This eclipses the amount of text contained in the world&#8217;s largest libraries, including the Library of Congress. If you tried to place the entire contents of the archive onto floppy disks&#8230; and laid them end to end, it would stretch from New York, past Los Angeles, and halfway to Hawaii.”<sup><a name="31" href="#31a">31</a></sup></li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</table>
<p><br />
</p>
<p><strong>Notes</strong></p>
<p><a name="1a" href="#1">1</a>. Federal Communications Commission, <em>In the Matter of 2002 Biennial Regulatory Review - Review of the Commission&#8217;s Broadcast Ownership Rules and Other Rules Adopted Pursuant to Section 202 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996</em>, FCC 03-127, June 2, 2003, p. 15, <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-03-127A1.pdf" target="_blank">http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-03-127A1.pdf</a>, cited hereafter as FCC, Media Ownership Proceeding.</p>
<p><a name="2a" href="#2">2</a>. <em>The Magazine Handbook 2004-5</em>, (New York, NY: Magazine Publishers of America, 2004), p. 5, <a href="http://www.magazine.org/content/Files/MPA%5Fhandbook%5F04.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.magazine.org/content/Files/MPA%5Fhandbook%5F04.pdf</a></p>
<p><a name="3a" href="#3">3</a>. Michael J. Wolf, “Here Comes Another Wave of Media Mergers,” <em>The Wall Street Journal</em>, February 21, 2002.</p>
<p><a name="4a" href="#4">4</a>. Scott Roberts, Jane Frenette and Dione Stearns, “A Comparison of Media Outlets and Owners for Ten Selected Markets: 1960, 1980, 2000,” Federal Communications Commission, <em>Media Ownership Working Group Study</em> no. 1, September 2002, p. 2, <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-226838A2.pdf" target="_blank">http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-226838A2.pdf</a></p>
<p><a name="5a" href="#5">5</a>. Eli M. Noam, “Media Concentration Trends in America: Just the Facts,” <em>In the Matter of 2002 Biennial Regulatory Review - Review of the Commission&#8217;s Broadcast Ownership Rules and Other Rules Adopted Pursuant to Section 202 of the Telecommunications Act of 1996</em>, January 2, 2003, p. 2, <a href="http://www.citi.columbia.edu/research/readings/mediaconcentration.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.citi.columbia.edu/research/readings/mediaconcentration.pdf</a></p>
<p><a name="6a" href="#6">6</a>. FCC, <em>Media Ownership Proceeding</em>, p. 148.</p>
<p><a name="7a" href="#7">7</a>. Peter Lyman and Hal R. Varian, <em>How Much Information?</em> 2003, School of Information Management and Systems, University of California at Berkeley, 2003, <a href="http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/printable_report.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/printable_report.pdf</a></p>
<p><a name="8a" href="#8">8</a>. Federal Communications Commission, <em>Tenth Annual Video Competition Report</em>, January 5, 2004, p. 115, <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-5A1.pdf" target="_blank">http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-5A1.pdf</a>, cited hereafter as FCC, Video Competition Report.</p>
<p><a name="9a" href="#9">9</a>. Robert J. Samuelson, “Bull Market for Media Bias,” <em>The Washington Post</em>, June 23, 2004, p. A21.</p>
<p><a name="10a" href="#10">10</a>. FCC, <em>Media Ownership Proceeding</em>, p. 149. Vol. 52.</p>
<p><a name="11a" href="#11">11</a>. Richard Saul Wurman, <em>Information Anxiety</em> (New York: Doubleday, 1989), p. 32. Likewise, William Van Winkle of <em>Computer Bits</em> magazine argues that, “A Sunday edition of the New York Times carries more information than the average 19th-century citizen accessed in his entire life.” William Van Winkle, “Information Overload,” <em>Computer Bits,</em>, February 1998, <a href="http://www.computerbits.com/archive/1998/0200/infoload.html" target="_blank">http://www.computerbits.com/archive/1998/0200/infoload.html</a></p>
<p><a name="12a" href="#12">12</a>. Susan Hubbard, in Carol Collier Kuhlthau, ed., <em>Information Skills for an Information Society: A Review of Research</em> (Syracuse, NY: ERIC Clearinghouse on Information Resources, December 1987).</p>
<p><a name="13a" href="#13">13</a>. Bagdikian, p. 29.</p>
<p><a name="14a" href="#14">14</a>. Scott Roberts, Jane Frenette and Dione Stearns, “A Comparison of Media Outlets and Owners for Ten Selected Markets: 1960, 1980, 2000,” Federal Communications Commission, <em>Media Ownership Working Group Study</em> no. 1, September 2002, p. 2, <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-226838A2.pdf" target="_blank">http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-226838A2.pdf</a></p>
<p><a name="15a" href="#15">15</a>. Joe Mandese, “Study: Media Overload on the Rise,” <em>Television Week</em>, May 17, 2004.</p>
<p><a name="16a" href="#16">16</a>. Various sources.</p>
<p><a name="17a" href="#17">17</a>. <em>Plunkett&#8217;s Entertainment & Media Industry Almanac 2002-2003</em> (Houston: Plunkett Research Ltd., 2002), p. 7.</p>
<p><a name="18a" href="#18">18</a>. Noted in Christina Wise, “The Good Ol’ Days Are Now: Cox,” <em>Investor&#8217;s Business Daily</em>, April 19, 2004, p. A22.</p>
<p><a name="19a" href="#19">19</a>. Federal Communications Commission, <em>Tenth Annual Video Competition Report</em>, January 5, 2004, p. 115, <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-5A1.pdf" target="_blank">http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-5A1.pdf</a>, cited hereafter as FCC, Video Competition Report.</p>
<p><a name="20a" href="#20">20</a>.FCC, <em>Media Ownership Proceeding</em>, p. 15. “Non-broadcast television programming continues to proliferate. Today, there are more than 308 satellite-delivered national non-broadcast television networks available for carriage over cable, DBS and other multichannel video program distribution (“MVPD”) systems. In 2002, the Commission also identified at least 86 regional non-broadcast networks, including 31 sports channels, and 32 regional and local news networks. We are moving to a system served by literally hundreds of networks serving all conceivable interests. Programming in particular abundance are sports, entertainment, and informational in nature. The four largest broadcast networks own both broadcast and cable channels. Their share of viewership is far greater than their share of the channels received by the typical American household. Of the 102 channels received by the average viewing home, the four largest broadcast networks have an ownership interest in approximately 25% of those channels.” Ibid., pp. 48-49.</p>
<p><a name="21a" href="#21">21</a>.FCC, <em>Media Ownership Proceeding</em>, p. 48-49.</p>
<p><a name="22a" href="#22">22</a>.Benjamin M. Compaine, “The Newspaper Industry,” in Benjamin M. Compaine and Douglas Gomery, eds., <em>Who Owns the Media? Competition and Concentration in the Mass Media Industry</em> (Mahwah, N.J.: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 3rd Edition, 2000), p. 7.</p>
<p><a name="23a" href="#23">23</a>.”Newspaper,” Microsoft Encarta Online Encyclopedia, 2004, <a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564853/Newspaper.html" target="_blank">http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564853/Newspaper.html</a></p>
<p><a name="24a" href="#24">24</a>.<em>The Magazine Handbook 2004-5</em>, (New York, NY: Magazine Publishers of America, 2004), p. 5, <a href="http://www.magazine.org/content/Files/MPA%5Fhandbook%5F04.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.magazine.org/content/Files/MPA%5Fhandbook%5F04.pdf</a></p>
<p><a name="25a" href="#25">25</a>.Ibid., p. 7.</p>
<p><a name="26a" href="#26">26</a>.Samir Husni, <em>Samir Husni&#8217;s Guide to New Magazines 2004</em>, 19th Edition, <a href="http://www.shgncm.com/shgncm/" target="_blank">http://www.shgncm.com/shgncm/</a></p>
<p><a name="27a" href="#27">27</a>.FCC, <em>Media Ownership Proceeding</em>, p. 148.</p>
<p><a name="28a" href="#28">28</a>.Peter Lyman and Hal R. Varian, <em>How Much Information?</em> 2003, School of Information Management and Systems, University of California at Berkeley, 2003, <a href="http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/printable_report.pdf" target="_blank">http://www.sims.berkeley.edu/research/projects/how-much-info-2003/printable_report.pdf</a></p>
<p><a name="29a" href="#29">29</a>.Leslie Walker, “EBay Gathering Puts Highs, Lows On Full Display,” <em>The Washington Post</em>, July 1, 2004, p. E1, <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17604-2004Jun30.html" target="_blank">http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17604-2004Jun30.html</a></p>
<p><a name="30a" href="#30">30</a>.”Google Achieves Search Milestone With Immediate Access To More Than 6 Billion Items,” Google Press Release, February 17, 2004, <a href="http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/6billion.html" target="_blank">http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/6billion.html</a></p>
<p><a name="31a" href="#31">31</a>.”Frequently Asked Questions,” Internet Archive Wayback Machine, <a href="http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php" target="_blank">http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php</a></p>
<p><br />
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</p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/congressional-testimony/overcoming-mythology-debate-over-media-ownershipTue, 28 Sep 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererCensoring Violence in Mediahttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/censoring-violence-media
<p>One of my earliest memories involves watching a monster movie on TV. I seem to recall it involved zombies hiding in a closet and grabbing people as they entered the room. Pretty creepy stuff and, quite honestly, I probably should not have been watching it. I&#8217;m not sure what mom was doing at the time, but she probably should have turned the TV off or found something better for me to watch.</p>
<p>If we are to believe some members of Congress, however, exposure to such violent images should have turned me into a madman. But even though I went on to watch more violent movies and programs, last time I checked, I still hadn&#8217;t harmed or killed anyone. Like millions of other kids who grew up watching cowboy shoot-em-ups, weekend “creature features,” or just plain old cops-and-robbers crime dramas, I learned how to separate fantasy from reality. Are there some unstable kids out there who are negatively influenced by violent images on TV? Sure. But one wonders how big that population really is and whether the root cause of their problems lies elsewhere (bad homes, bad neighborhoods, or even serious mental conditions). The <a href="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA421945?display=Editorials" target="_blank">academic literature</a> is all over the place on this question and debates still rage about correlation versus causation when it comes to violent programming and aggressive behavior.</p>
<p>Regardless, our knights in shining armor in Congress are once again proposing to ride to our collective rescue and sanitize television “for the sake of the children.” The “for the children” mantra has quickly become the universal pretext for legislative attempts to censor TV, radio, cable, video games and the Internet. Apparently, if you have the best interests of children in mind, you can dispense with the First Amendment and let the government censor whatever it pleases.</p>
<p>Maybe I sound like a broken record for posing this question in every essay on censorship I pen, but I&#8217;m going to go ahead and ask it again: What ever happened to personal and parental responsibility in this country? The responses I get generally fall into one of two camps. One group says personal responsibility died a slow but certain death in this country a long time ago and that I&#8217;m just another principled but quixotic dreamer who has yet to come to grips with the inevitability of government censorship. This group doesn&#8217;t like the sound of censorship, but is apparently willing to live with it, or they&#8217;ve just given up fighting the good fight. Another group, however, openly embraces the idea of Uncle Sam playing the role of surrogate parent in our homes. They lament the fact that media is so ubiquitous in our lives today and say they&#8217;ve largely given up trying to keep tabs on what their kids watch or listen to.</p>
<p>Either way, a lot of people appear ready to raise the white flag and let government censor “for the children.” So the censorship crusade du jour, aimed at getting “excessive violence” out of the media, suddenly seems like a very real possibility. The Senate recently included a measure in a military spending bill (how&#8217;s that for irony!) that would ban violent video programming on broadcast TV during hours in which children might be in the audience (basically anytime before 10:00 p.m.). And 39 members of the House Commerce Committee recently <a href="http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA422019?display=Top+of+the+Week&promocode=SUPP" target="_blank">wrote to the FCC</a> requesting that the agency study what it could do about violence on television. The FCC quickly responded by announcing <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-175A1.pdf" target="_blank">a new inquiry</a> into the issue. Meanwhile, there are still lurking threats of regulation of supposedly overly violent <a href="http://www.cato.org/030624-tk.html">video games</a> at both the federal and state levels.</p>
<p>But while the <a href="http://www.cato.org/040625-tk.html">censorship bandwagon</a> is really rolling this year in the wake of the Janet Jackson incident, I would hope there are a few brave souls left out there willing to fight attempts by Beltway bureaucrats to dictate what our families can see or hear. The fundamental problem with proposals to censor violence in media is that they will require that the government make myriad “eye of the beholder” decisions about what is “too violent” on behalf of <em>all</em> Americans. Choices that we should be making voluntarily for ourselves and our children are suddenly choices made through the political process, with its coercive ability to silence any views or content it finds unacceptable.</p>
<p>Consider the ramifications of allowing a handful of folks down at the FCC to determine what constitutes “excessive violence.” Are the bloody and occasionally gruesome scenes in CSI and ER excessive, or is that a reasonable depiction of forensic and medical science? Hockey games on prime-time TV feature lots of fights, blood, and lost teeth. For decades, cartoons have offered a buffet of violent acts, and slapstick comedy of the Three Stooges variety features a lot of unforgivingly violent moments presented as humor. Should regulators also censor the many <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-06-09-war-video-games-inside_x.htm" target="_blank">combat-oriented video games</a> on the market today that involve extremely realistic military training and war game scenarios, some of which even rely on the consulting services of former military officials? How about gruesome war scenes from actual combat that any child can see on the nightly news? What about the stabbing, poisoning, and other heinous acts found in Shakespeare&#8217;s tragedies? And, for God&#8217;s sake (excuse the pun), what about all the violence in the Bible or Mel Gibson&#8217;s <em>The Passion of the Christ</em>?</p>
<p>I could go on and on, but you get the point. This all comes down to a question of who calls the shots-parents or government-regarding what we are allowed to see and hear in a free society. This is not to say society must celebrate or even defend violence in the media; there are plenty of movies, shows and games that do contain what many parents would regard as a troubling amount of violent content for young children to witness. Parents need to act responsibly and exercise their private right-indeed, responsibility-to censor their children&#8217;s eyes and ears from certain things. It&#8217;s become increasingly evident, however, that a lot of parents have just gotten lazy about carrying out this difficult job. While I can appreciate the hassle of constantly trying to monitor a child&#8217;s viewing and listening habits, that&#8217;s no excuse for throwing in the towel and calling in the government to censor what the rest of the world has access to.</p>
<p>By the way, let&#8217;s not forget that we long ago opened the door to government censorship when we allowed them to mandate that those silly “V-Chips” be installed in every TV set to supposedly help us censor sex and violence. Have you <a href="http://www.kff.org/entmedia/3158-V-Chip-release.cfm" target="_blank">ever met anyone who uses them</a>? Neither have I, but many lawmakers will use that fact as yet another reason to censor more directly. Those who were ridiculed for predicting that the V-Chip could lead to more far-reaching censorship of violence on television deserve an apology.</p>
<p>Finally, one wonders what all this hand-wringing over violence means for cable and satellite programs and providers. This has been a watershed year in terms of congressional attempts to assert control over content on pay TV, with <a href="http://www.cato.org/040329-tk.html">several proposals flying</a> to “do something” about indecency on cable. And now the Senate wants to regulate violence on cable too, although it is willing to carve out “premium” or pay-per-view services. Thus, <em>The Sopranos</em> gets a pass while <em>Nip/Tuck</em> and <em>The Shield</em> are apparently fair game for the censors. All because the Senate argues that “broadcast television, cable television and video programming are uniquely pervasive presences in the lives of all American children, and (are) readily accessible to all American children.” Again, it&#8217;s all “for the children.” But is there anyone left in government who will stand up for freedom, the First Amendment, and personal responsibility?</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/censoring-violence-mediaTue, 10 Aug 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererMedia Ownership Regulation Redux: A Reality Checkhttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/media-ownership-regulation-redux-reality-check
<p>Last week, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals <a href="http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/033388p.pdf" target="_blank">threw out</a> most of the FCC&#8217;s new media ownership rules, arguing that the agency had not done a sufficient job justifying a relaxation of existing regulatory constraints. This claim seemed strange given the voluminous record the FCC created to justify its new rules, which included not only its final <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-03-127A1.pdf" target="_blank">250-page rulemaking</a>, but <a href="http://www.fcc.gov/ownership/studies.html" target="_blank">a dozen</a> “Media Ownership Working Group” studies, which provided extensive empirical support for relaxation of the rules.</p>
<p>But that wasn&#8217;t good enough for the Third Circuit, and now the court will apparently act as a de facto review board for future FCC media ownership decisions. This will leave media law in this country “in a clouded and confused state” as FCC chairman Michael Powell <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/DOC-248793A1.pdf" target="_blank">noted</a> in the wake of the decision. Worse yet, this decision turns back the clock on mass media regulation in America and pretends that nothing has changed in recent decades to justify a relaxation of the rules that bind the media sector.</p>
<p>There&#8217;s no need to go into a long-winded dissertation about just how wrong-headed this thinking is when the facts do the talking so nicely on their own. Media critics have repeatedly shown their preference to use emotionalism, hyperbolic rhetoric, and shameless fear-mongering to make their case for extensive media ownership regulation. But a dispassionate review of the facts about modern media makes it clear that to the extent there has ever been a “Golden Age” of media in America, we are living in it today. The following facts are taken from a forthcoming Cato Institute book <em>Media Myths: Making Sense of the Debate over Media Ownership Regulation</em>:</p>
<p><strong>General Media Facts or Trends:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>“A weekday edition of the <em>New York Times</em> contains more information than the average person was likely to come across in a lifetime in seventeenth-century England,” claims <em>Information Anxiety</em> author Richard Saul Wurman. A 1987 report entitled <em>Information Skills for an Information Society</em> found that more new information had been produced within the last 30 years than in the last 5000.</li>
<li>According to Ben Bagdikian, a leading critic of media deregulation, there are 37,000 different media outlets in America. That number jumps to 54,000 if all weeklies, semiweeklies, advertising weeklies, and periodicals are included, and to 178,000 if all “information industries” are included. And yet the title of Bagdikian&#8217;s most recent book is <em>The New Media Monopoly</em>.</li>
<li>Investment banker Veronis Suhler Stevenson <a href="http://www.tvweek.com/planning/051704study.html" target="_blank">reports</a> that by 2007 the average American will spend 3,874 hours per year using major consumer media, an increase of 792 hours per year from the 3,082 hours per year that the average person spent using consumer media in 1977.</li>
<li>According to various sources, as of 2003 household penetration rates for various media and communications technologies were very high: VCR-88 percent; DVD-50 percent; DBS-24 percent; cell phones-70 percent; personal computers-66 percent; and Internet access-75 percent. With the exception of VCRs, none of these technologies were in American homes in 1980.</li>
<li>According to <a href="http://www.hoovers.com/business-information/--pageid__10045--/global-books-index.xhtml" target="_blank"><em>Plunkett&#8217;s Entertainment & Media Industry Almanac</em></a>, in 2002, the average consumer spent $212 for basic cable, $100 for books, $110 for home videos, $71 for music recordings, $58 for daily newspapers, $45 for magazines, $45 for online Internet services, and $36 on movies.</li>
<li>A three-minute coast-to-coast long-distance phone call which cost roughly $1.35 in 1970 cost only15 cents in 2003, according to W. Michael Cox, chief economist of the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Television / Video Competition:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>The FCC <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-04-5A1.pdf" target="_blank">has found</a> that 88 percent of Americans now subscribe to cable and satellite “pay TV” sources even though “free, over-the-air” television remains at their disposal.</li>
<li>The FCC <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-03-127A1.pdf" target="_blank">notes</a>: “In 1979, the vast majority of households had six or fewer local television stations to choose from, three of which were typically affiliated with a broadcast network. Today the average U.S. household receives seven broadcast television networks and an average of 102 channels per home.”</li>
<li>There are more than 308 satellite-delivered national nonbroadcast television networks available for carriage over cable, DBS, and other systems today. The FCC <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-03-127A1.pdf" target="_blank">concludes</a>, “We are moving to a system served by literally hundreds of networks serving all conceivable interests.”</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Magazines:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>According to the Magazine Publishers of America , there were 17,321 magazines produced in 2002, up from 14,870 in 1992. As the MPA&#8217;s annual <em>Magazine Handbook</em> <a href="http://www.magazine.org/content/Files/MPA_handbook_03.pdf" target="_blank">notes</a>, “For virtually every human interest, there is a magazine.”</li>
<li>There were 949 new magazine launches in 2003, up from 289 new launches in 2002, <a href="http://www.shgncm.com/shgncm/" target="_blank">according to</a> <em>Samir Husni&#8217;s Guide to New Magazines</em>.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Newspapers:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>In 1900 the average newspaper had only 8 pages according to Benjamin Compaine of MIT. In the year 2000, by contrast, <a href="http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761564853/Newspaper.html" target="_blank">according to</a> the <em>Encarta</em> encyclopedia, “Daily general-circulation newspapers average[d] about 65 pages during the week and more than 200 pages in the weekend edition.”</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Radio:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>According to FCC data, the number of radio stations in America has roughly doubled since 1970. As of March 2004, there were 13,476 radio stations in America, up from 6,751 in January 1970.</li>
<li>Satellite radio (XM and Sirius), an industry that did not even exist before December 2001, today boasts more than two million subscribers nationwide according to company reports.</li>
</ul>
<p><strong>Internet / Online Services:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Seventy-two percent of Americans are now online and spend an average of nine hours weekly on the Internet <a href="http://hraunfoss.fcc.gov/edocs_public/attachmatch/FCC-03-127A1.pdf" target="_blank">according to</a> the FCC.</li>
<li>Online search giant Google recently <a href="http://www.google.com/press/pressrel/6billion.html" target="_blank">reported</a> that its collection of 6 billion items includes “4.28 billion web pages, 880 million images, 845 million Usenet messages, and a growing collection of book-related information pages.”</li>
<li>The Internet Archive “Wayback Machine” (<a href="http://www.archive.org/" target="_blank">www.archive.org</a>) offers 30 billion web pages archived from 1996 to the present. It contains approximately one pedabyte of data and is currently growing at a rate of 20 terabytes per month. The site <a href="http://www.archive.org/about/faqs.php" target="_blank">notes</a>: “This eclipses the amount of text contained in the world&#8217;s largest libraries, including the Library of Congress. If you tried to place the entire contents of the archive onto floppy disks &#8230; and laid them end to end, it would stretch from New York, past Los Angeles, and halfway to Hawaii.”</li>
</ul>
<p>So, let us once again ask the question: Has nothing really changed in America&#8217;s media universe?</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/media-ownership-regulation-redux-reality-checkWed, 30 Jun 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererSurrogate-Parent Samhttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/surrogateparent-sam
<p>The Senate voted overwhelmingly this week to step up fines for broadcast-television and radio indecency violations. The measure authorized the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to increase maximum fines for naughty behavior on the airwaves from $27,500 to $275,000, a 10-fold increase. The measure passed as part of the fiscal-year 2005 defense-authorization bill.</p>
<p>Who could be against such a measure? Obviously no one in Congress, because the bill was a slam-dunk in both chambers. Outgoing Senator John Breaux (D., La.) was the lone dissenter in the Senate-and that was because he was angry the bill didn&#8217;t go far enough, regulating indecency on cable and satellite television too. In an age of supposedly bitter political partisanship, nothing seems to unite old enemies like an effort to get on the moral high horse and preach to the media about cleaning up their act. After all, this is “mom, baseball, and apple pie” stuff, right? Parents like me should be rejoicing that our judicious and morally upstanding leaders are taking steps to protect our children from the filth in this world.</p>
<p>But there is another, less popular way of looking at the issue. That is, whatever happened to personal responsibility?</p>
<p>I have a serious problem with calling in Uncle Sam to play the role of surrogate parent and I would hope some others out there do too. Particularly troubling to me is the fact that so many conservatives, who rightly preach the gospel of personal responsibility about most economic issues, seemingly give up on this notion when it comes to cultural issues. Art, music, and speech are fair game for the Ministry of Culture down at the FCC, but don&#8217;t let them regulate our cable rates!</p>
<p>But the real folly of these latest indecency fines is that they will have little real impact in ridding the world of things politicians don&#8217;t want to see or hear. That&#8217;s because Sen. Breaux was actually on to something when he cast his sole dissenting vote arguing that lawmakers need to deal with cable and satellite television as well if they want to be an effective culture cop. Indeed, with almost 90 percent of American households now voluntarily subscribing to cable or satellite television-and satellite radio now on the rise too-it doesn&#8217;t make a difference whether Congress votes to raise broadcast fines by ten times or a million times. None of this will have an effect in the realm of subscription-based “pay TV” and radio.</p>
<p>So when the last person in America has thrown away his old rabbit-ear television set and converted to cable or satellite TV, what is Congress going to do? Will Tony Soprano and Co. be getting their mouths washed out with soap?</p>
<p>But let&#8217;s get back to the regulation of broadcast TV and radio, which admittedly does still play a major role in our society and continues to be licensed by the FCC to operate “in the public interest.”</p>
<p>The oldest rationale for regulating over-the-air TV and radio is the one the censors still rely on today: pervasiveness. Incalculable numbers of lawmakers, regulators, and jurists have made the argument that TV and radio are so darn ubiquitous that special constraints must apply to them-constraints they would never be able to place on books or magazines, thanks to the strict First Amendment protection those media receive.</p>
<p>The biggest problem with this “pervasiveness rationale” is that it treats modern electronic technologies as the equivalent of invaders into our homes and lives. But TVs and radios don&#8217;t have legs and don&#8217;t storm into our homes uninvited. We put them there by choice. Once we do so, we should be prepared to assume some responsibility about how our kids use them.</p>
<p>Moreover, where does this “pervasiveness standard” lead us in a world of intense media competition? Beyond the 90 percent of us who have voluntarily purchased cable and satellite services, what of the Internet and cyberspace? It&#8217;s tough to imagine a more “pervasive” technology than the World Wide Web. And once it&#8217;s in everyone&#8217;s homes and offices, it will be tough to understand why we should have one standard for the Net, cable, and satellite, and another for broadcast television and radio.</p>
<p>So, how do we reconcile this? As traditional broadcasting dies a slow but certain death, do we start censoring “indecent” speech on cable, satellite, the Internet, and everything that follows?</p>
<p>In a free society, different people will have different values and tolerance levels when it comes to speech, and government should not impose the will of some on all. When it comes to minding the kids, I&#8217;ll take responsibility for teaching my own about the realities of this world, including the unsavory bits. You worry about yours. Let&#8217;s not call in the government to do the job for us.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/surrogateparent-samFri, 25 Jun 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererOn Drawing Lines in Copyright Lawhttp://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/drawing-lines-copyright-law
<p>
<!--TEXT -->
As Wayne Crews and I pointed out in the introduction to our book <em><a href="http://www.cato.org/store/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&method=cats&scid=30&pid=1441127">Copy Fights: The Future of Intellectual Property in the Information Age</a>,</em> striking a sensible balance when it comes to copyright law has always been a challenging, messy task. The inherent tension in copyright law comes from trying to accomplish two noble goals that are sometimes difficult to reconcile. On one hand, copyright is supposed to reward innovators by granting them limited terms of protection so they can commercially exploit their creation before anyone else. On the other hand, copyright law is supposed to help encourage the widespread dissemination of ideas and useful products in our economy. Questions about where to draw the line and when we should call in the IP cops to resolve disputes are what make the process so contentious. Optimally, we should avoid injecting coercion into the IP process unless absolutely necessary. Contracts, technological self-help measures, and creative business models can go a long way toward achieving a workable IP balance. But at the end of the day, if these market mechanisms aren&#8217;t enough, copyright holders are going to want to call in the cops to protect their rights. </p>
<p>But <em>how</em> we call in the cops and <em>who</em> the IP cops are makes a big difference. In particular, we shouldn&#8217;t expect Congress or regulatory agencies to legislate on every problem that creeps up or ban or mandate specific technological solutions in an attempt to solve IP debates. But when certain parties are egregiously violating the rights of copyright holders, they are certainly justified in seeking redress in the courts. Common law resolution to copyright disputes has the advantage of avoiding a hasty, ham-handed legislative quick fix. As has been the case throughout most of copyright&#8217;s history, courts can sort through rival claims to determine where the creators’ concerns have merit and where the rights of consumers should instead carry the day. Two recent IP disputes illustrate how this sensible framework can still work today. </p>
<p><strong>The “Broadcast Flag” Decision.</strong><br />
Last November, at the request of several content companies and broadcasters, the Federal Communications Commission mandated that by July 1, 2005, every consumer electronic device in America capable of receiving digital TV signals must be able to recognize a “<a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/031113-tk.html">broadcast flag</a>” &#8212; or string of digital code &#8212; that will be embedded in future digital broadcast programming. In theory, the presence of this embedded code will encourage content creators and broadcasters to air more digital programming “in the clear” (i.e., over the air), on the assumption that the broadcast flag will allow them to prohibit mass redistribution through peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. In other words, the broadcast flag mandate is supposed to prevent the “Napsterization” of video programming. </p>
<p>But in their rush to preempt this supposed problem, a completely sensible alternative was ignored. Namely, if you&#8217;re a broadcaster or a movie studio and discover that a handful of individuals are redistributing your products without permission or compensation, why not just sue them directly and avoid all this regulatory nonsense? No good answer was provided. What makes this all the more surprising is that such a model already existed in the lawsuits that the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) was filing against individuals accused of widespread copyright infringement. As distasteful as some find the RIAA lawsuits, they are certainly superior to the strategy the music industry was pursuing previously: trying to shut down all (P2P) file sharing networks. At least a lawsuit strategy would be capable of targeting the handful of individuals causing the most serious problems, without seeking to ban technologies or concocting grand industrial policy solutions to the problem. But instead of taking this more targeted approach and using the courts to go after the handful who might illegally distribute digital TV programming, the broadcast flag proposal opens the door to an intrusive FCC regulatory regime for the Internet and computing in the future. </p>
<p><strong>The 321 Studios Case.</strong><br />
Another instance where this model could have been tapped is the fight over the “DVD X Copy” and “DVD Copy Plus” software products sold by 321 Studios, which allow consumers to make backup copies of DVDs. In fact, 321 Studios is currently involved in a <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3534299.stm" target="_blank">heated lawsuit</a> with the members of the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) over the legality of 321’s software, which MPAA believes violates Section 1201 of the <a href="http://www.copyright.gov/legislation/dmca.pdf" target="_blank">Digital Millennium Copyright Act</a> of 1998. Section 1201 bans technologies that would circumvent or defeat the technological measures used by copyright owners to protect access to their works. This anti-circumvention mandate is quickly proving to be one of the most controversial copyright reforms passed by Congress in years and now threatens to remove software from the market that is being used for entirely legitimate and lawful purposes. </p>
<p>MPAA president Jack Valenti &#8212; the same man who once said, “the VCR is to the American film producer and the American public as the Boston strangler is to the woman home alone” &#8212; has argued that consumers have no legitimate need for software products like those sold by 321. Last November <a href="http://www.bizreport.com/article.php?art_id=6335" target="_blank">he said</a>, “If you buy a DVD you have a copy. If you want a backup copy you buy another one.” But this worldview is not consistent with the rights consumers already enjoy with regard to time-shifting or saving content on audio cassettes or VHS video tapes. Consumers should have the reasonable expectation that they will be able to make at least some copies of the content they purchase, whether that content appears in books, music, or movies. For example, I have personally used similar DVD backup software called “<a href="http://www.dvdshrink.org/" target="_blank">DVD Shrink</a>” that I freely downloaded from an overseas website to copy and burn my favorite individual movie scenes onto a single DVD. I use this single DVD to show friends and family all my favorite DVD scenes in rapid succession without having to put the original movie in the player each time. (This is similar to what millions of American already do with music when they burn their favorite songs onto one tape or CD.) </p>
<p>But, following the logic of the case against 321, presumably the MPAA would like to see the “freeware” I downloaded outlawed and then throw me in jail to boot. But why? It&#8217;s hard to see how I&#8217;ve broken the copyright bargain in this case since I went out and purchased dozens of new movies to make this compilation of my favorite movie scenes. If, however, I had made additional copies of this compilation DVD and sold them on e-Bay, or even shared the disc with the entire world via a P2P network, I would agree that I had crossed a line and broken the copyright bargain and should be held liable for my actions. And 321 Studios acknowledges this, too. On their “<a href="http://www.protectfairuse.org/" target="_blank">Protect Fair Use</a>” website, the company <a href="http://www.protectfairuse.org/policymakers/rightwrong.html" target="_blank">states</a>, “Fair use isn&#8217;t the same as free use. Consumers shouldn&#8217;t have the right to make copies for commercial use without the permission of copyright holders. They should not be able to sell illegally acquired copies of digital works, either on disk or over the Internet.” That&#8217;s exactly right, and the proper course of action in cases where consumers betray this trust would be for the movie studios to file suit against them for undercutting the commercial viability of their products. But if millions of average movie lovers like me are considered criminals for merely copying a few of their favorite movies or individual scenes onto a different disc, then something has gone horribly wrong with copyright law in America. </p>
<p>Intellectual property plays a vital role in our modern Information Age economy, but we should not adopt a “by-any-means-necessary” approach to copyright enforcement. Targeted, court-based adjudication of clear-cut copyright infringement is the better way to balance the interests of consumers and creators. </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/drawing-lines-copyright-lawThu, 17 Jun 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererShed No Tears for AT&Thttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/shed-no-tears-t
<p>The writing is on the wall. AT&T&#8217;s days are numbered. A combination of recent regulatory developments and strategic business blunders over the past few years has sealed its fate. But while it brings me no joy to report that this once-great company may soon meet its demise, I will also not be shedding any tears on the day that “T” disappears from the stock market ticker and our telecom landscape. While AT&T and its supporters claim it is the victim of a nefarious conspiracy by the Baby Bells and over-zealous deregulators, the reality is quite different. This company rolled the dice in the post-Telecom Act era and lost. It had a chance to be a major player-perhaps the preeminent player-in the Digital Age, but the firm&#8217;s bull-headed reliance on a misguided regulatory regime, and its foolish abandonment of important investments and technologies meant the company largely dug its own grave long ago.</p>
<p><strong>“Castles Made of Ampersands.”</strong> A recent <em>Slate</em> critique of AT&T&#8217;s latest advertising campaign included the wonderful headline “<a href="http://slate.msn.com/id/2101844/" target="_blank">Castles Made of Ampersands.</a>” Author Seth Stevenson was referring to the fact that AT&T officials apparently think they can make it on their brand name alone these days. Besides the fact that this latest ad campaign is “an ill-conceived mess” in Stevenson&#8217;s opinion, his broader thesis is what is really important here: the firm is now using its incredibly powerful brand name to keep its head above water. Without it, one wonders if AT&T would still be afloat.</p>
<p>Things didn&#8217;t have to turn out this way. Indeed, AT&T made some very bold moves following the Telecom Act to diversify its product offerings and position itself against competitors. It <a href="http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june99/att_5-6.html" target="_blank">invested over $100 billion in cable systems</a> to acquire a competing wire to the home and offer high-speed Internet services to customers; they strung fiber across America to connect those systems; they aggressively deployed a wireless architecture to be a major player in the cell phone market; and they even toyed with something called “<a href="http://news.com.com/2100-1033-238307.html?legacy=cnet" target="_blank">Project Angel</a>” that would have offered a wireless “last mile” solution for those homes they couldn&#8217;t reach with their cable systems. And on top of all of this, the firm still had the recognition that goes along with having one of the most powerful brand names the world had ever known and a single letter designation (T) on the Big Board as one America&#8217;s oldest and most stable investment options.</p>
<p>This combination had a lot of people on Wall Street and in Washington (including yours truly) predicting that this was <em>the</em> company to watch in the Information Age. T had covered all its bases by diversifying its product mix and was well positioned to offer consumers a complete suite of communications services bundled into one simple bill. Certainly they couldn&#8217;t mess this up, right? Well, <a href="http://att.com.com/2100-1033-247561.html?legacy=cnet" target="_blank">they did</a>. The cable gamble proved to be an expensive one that company officials ultimately felt compelled to abandon, <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/2001/12/20/att-comcast.htm" target="_blank">selling all their cable systems</a> to Comcast for roughly $50 billion, half of what they paid for them. Their fiber and long-distance networks faced intense competition, and they were unable to ever be a price leader in the field. <a href="http://wirelessreview.com/ar/wireless_project_angel_crashes/" target="_blank">“Project Angel” was abandoned</a> before the ink was dry on the blueprints. And, just recently, <a href="http://money.cnn.com/2004/02/17/technology/cingular_att/" target="_blank">AT&T Wireless was sold to Cingular</a> for $41 billion. The net result of this endless shedding of assets is a hollowed-out shell of a once great company. With the long-distance market being cannibalized by wireless and VoIP, and the business customer market subject to such intense competition, there&#8217;s little chance that those two remaining units will be able to keep T afloat much longer.</p>
<p><strong>Regulators to the Rescue.</strong> But AT&T had one last hope: Coax federal and state regulators to rig telecom regulations in such a way as to handicap the Baby Bells while tossing T a life preserver. In this regard, AT&T&#8217;s knight in shining armor was former FCC chairman Reed Hundt and his merry band of infrastructure-sharing regulators. Throughout the late 1990s, Hundt and Co. ushered in staggering volumes of new “<a href="http://www.catostore.org/index.asp?fa=ProductDetails&pid=1441099">open access</a>” mandates aimed at forcing the Baby Bells to essentially share every component of their local telecom infrastructure with competitors like AT&T at greatly reduced rates. In theory, this would keep the Bells’ market power in check while giving T and other rivals a chance to resell services over Bell networks under their own name.</p>
<p>It doesn&#8217;t take a Ph.D. economist to see the nagging flaw in this scheme: If everyone is encouraged to share the old networks, who is going to build the new ones? But put this innovation / investment issue aside and consider the more troubling question which T and the other infrastructure-sharing crew should have been asking themselves: What good is a business model that relies on access to my competitors’ networks? Ford doesn&#8217;t depend on access to Chevy&#8217;s factories to build cars; Ford builds their own factories. Same goes for telecom, but regulators and rivals like AT&T weren&#8217;t willing to take the hard road when the open access path offered immediate results in the form of imaginary telecom “competition.” And, so, infrastructure sharing trumped infrastructure creation in telecom markets and everybody sued everybody else for eight years trying to figure out how to make these rules “fair.” Meanwhile, this farce did nothing to benefit consumers and also was primarily to blame for the telecom market crash of the late 1990s. It was the triumph of good intentions over good economics.</p>
<p><strong>Lessons Learned?</strong> Nonetheless, for a time, it appeared that many regulators were willing to pay any price and bear any burden to prop up this misguided regulatory regime to help keep AT&T and others afloat. Although the rules were challenged from many quarters, as part of a last ditch attempt to save the infrastructure-sharing scheme, AT&T and others mounted an intense lobbying effort in 2003 to convince the FCC to prop up this house of cards as part of the agency&#8217;s major Triennial Review Order. Amazingly, <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/030915-tk.html">it worked</a>. Republican Kevin Martin joined the Commission&#8217;s two Democrats and brokered a convoluted deal aimed at keeping hope alive for AT&T and Co. But then came a resounding defeat on March 2 as the rules were struck down for a third time by the U.S. District Court of Appeals <a href="http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/data2/circs/dc/001012b.pdf" target="_blank">in a harshly-worded reprimand</a>. And then, just last week, Solicitor General <a href="http://www.techlawjournal.com/topstories/2004/20040609.asp" target="_blank">Ted Olson announced</a> that the Bush Administration would not seek Supreme Court review of the D.C. Circuit decision. The game was up for T.</p>
<p>Will policymakers take other steps to prop up AT&T? Unlikely. Barring a Chrysler-esque bailout (which will never happen) or a radical revision of the Telecom Act imposing even more onerous infrastructure sharing requirements (still unlikely), it appears that T is out of options. A merger of what remains of the company with some other major telecom provider seems inevitable at some point. That great brand name can only sustain them for so long (although T&#8217;s contract with the Federal Trade Commission to run the “<a href="http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/telecom/2003-11-03-att-no-call_x.htm" target="_blank">Do Not Call</a>” list provides them some temporary life support).</p>
<p>If AT&T&#8217;s post-Telecom Act troubles have taught policymakers and telecom companies anything it should be this: Real companies must build real networks if they want to survive. Networks built of paper-which is about all the Telecom Act&#8217;s infrastructure-sharing rules produced-have very little chance of surviving in the long run. Although there may be room for a handful of telecom resellers in this market, it will likely remain a small niche, and that is how it should be. It&#8217;s time to let the big boys get on with the serious business of building the big networks this country needs. AT&T R.I.P.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/shed-no-tears-tWed, 16 Jun 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererNegotiate, Not Litigatehttp://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/negotiate-not-litigate
<p>When the D.C. Circuit Appeals Court in March once again threw out the Federal Communications Commission&#8217;s rules requiring incumbent telephone companies like Verizon to share their network facilities at regulated rates, the court handed the telecommunications industry a huge opportunity. In short, there is an opportunity to replace the traditional public utility, litigation-oriented regulatory regime with a less-regulated, commercially oriented regime in which telecom providers wishing to share facilities are free to enter mutually acceptable agreements.</p>
<p>But this chance may be squandered by state regulators, and federal regulators too, if they insist on putting their own regulatory stamp on the freely negotiated agreements. In the last century&#8217;s telecom world, communications services were largely provided on a monopoly basis. In that old environment, a regime heavily weighted toward regulation and litigation may have been appropriate, or at least acceptable.</p>
<p>In today&#8217;s Internet Age environment, however, wireline telephone companies, cable companies and wireless telephone companies, not to mention new Voice over Internet Protocol (“VoIP”) and electronic messaging providers all compete. Consumer welfare will be greatly enhanced if these service providers are allowed to do what they do in other competitive markets &#8212; freely negotiate private contracts that best meet their mutual needs.</p>
<p>The appeals court held that the FCC&#8217;s existing rules are inconsistent with the 1996 Telecom Act because they mandate that incumbent telecoms provide competitors with virtually unlimited access to the incumbents’ networks even if the new entrants are not impaired from providing their own facilities. This came after the FCC received two previous judicial rebukes of these rules for the same reason. The court&#8217;s frustration, in chastising the “commission&#8217;s failure, after eight years, to develop lawful unbundling rules, and its apparent unwillingness to adhere to prior judicial rulings,” was understandable. After the court&#8217;s decision, one option open to those who favor continuing the old regime is to just keep litigating by asking the Supreme Court to review the appeals court decision.</p>
<p>With the opening provided by the decision, however, the previously bitterly divided commission came together March 31 to urge telecom providers to “begin a period of commercial negotiations designed to restore certainty and preserve competition in the telecommunications market.” Observing that the incessant litigation has unsettled the market, the commissioners “ask[ed] all carriers to engage in a period of good-faith negotiations to arrive at commercially acceptable arrangements” for interconnection and facilities-sharing. They noted the 1996 Telecom Act clearly contemplated “the role of commercial negotiations as a tool in shaping a competitive communications marketplace.”</p>
<p>So far, so good. The negotiations between the incumbent telecoms and their competitors even got off to a modestly encouraging start, with incumbent SBC and Sage Telecom, the third-largest competitive carrier in SBC&#8217;s territory, announcing they had entered into a seven-year commercial agreement. This was followed by an announcement that incumbent Qwest had negotiated a three-year commercial agreement with Covad, a leading provider of broadband Internet services. But now it looks as if some of the state public utility commissions are determined to throw roadblocks into the negotiating process, and there have been indications the FCC may be meddling as well by, say, requesting negotiating information and pressuring parties to use mediators.</p>
<p>For example, the Michigan Public Service Commission has issued an order requiring submission of the SBC/Sage agreement for approval so it can “determine whether agreement discriminates against other competitors and is in the public interest.” The California, Texas and Kansas commissions have indicated the SBC/Sage agreement should be subject to their OK. Not surprisingly, the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners, the state commissioners’ trade association, has urged that all commercial agreements be reviewed by the state commissions.</p>
<p>Although the matter is not free from doubt, there is a good argument that as a legal matter these private agreements need not be filed with state commissions to the extent they involve network elements no longer subject to FCC access requirements. There is no doubt, however, that if the agreements must be filed publicly and are subject to an undefined “public interest” review by state regulators, the commercial negotiations the FCC commissioners (and even many state commissioners) wish to succeed, in fact, will likely fail since the incentive to negotiate will be severely diminished.</p>
<p>If negotiated agreements are required to be filed at all, at a minimum state regulators should use existing authority to protect the confidentiality of commercially sensitive terms and conditions. And they should presume such individually negotiated agreements are in the public interest. After all, the ability of private parties to negotiate binding agreements tailored to meet their individual needs is at the heart of an unregulated competitive marketplace. Such agreements provide long-term stability and facilitate sound business plans. It is no accident the SBC/Sage and the Qwest/Covad agreements are for seven and three years respectively.</p>
<p>The D.C. Circuit decision has opened a window of opportunity to escape the regulatory and litigation morass that has prevailed since the 1996 Telecom Act passed. But if regulators act as if nothing has really changed, then nothing will. It is past time for regulators to abandon the last century&#8217;s public utility model in favor of a market-oriented regime in which industry participants have contract freedom so, like others in a competitive marketplace, they can decide themselves how to meet customer needs by voluntary agreements.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/negotiate-not-litigateMon, 07 Jun 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Randolph J. May, James L. Gatusso, Adam D. ThiererCensor cable TV? Forgettaboutithttp://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/censor-cable-tv-forgettaboutit
<p>Like millions of other Americans, I will be glued to my television set on Sunday night watching the season finale of HBO&#8217;s critically acclaimed series “The Sopranos” to see who “gets it,” or even just to hear Tony or one of his mobster buddies say “Forgettaboutit!” one last time this season. </p>
<p>But one person who definitely won&#8217;t be watching “The Sopranos” finale is my young daughter. The violence, profanity and sexual content is not something I want her exposed to. I&#8217;m not sure what the right age is for children to see such programming, but at the point my wife and I think she&#8217;s ready, we&#8217;ll talk to her about such shows before we sit down to watch them with her. These are tough choices all parents have to make. </p>
<p>There is another alternative, of course. Our government could decide for us which shows are best for our children, or perhaps just determine which hours of the day certain shows could be aired in an attempt to shield our children&#8217;s eyes and ears from them. While there are those who would welcome such a move, I would hope that there are still some other parents like me out there who aren&#8217;t comfortable with the idea of calling in Uncle Sam to play the role of surrogate parent. Censorship on an individual/parental level is a fundamental part of being a good parent. But censorship at a governmental level is an entirely different matter because it means a small handful of individuals get to decide what the whole nation is permitted to see, hear or think. </p>
<p>Are lawmakers really serious about censoring cable TV? Regrettably they are. Building on the momentum of the new indecency witch hunt that is driving many talk-show hosts off broadcast radio, and has television shows like “E.R.” altering their content to keep censors happy, lawmakers are now putting cable programming in their cross-hairs. Discussions have taken place in Congress about “codes of conduct” for cable TV, and even a government-approved “family-friendly” tier on cable systems. Joe Barton, R-Texas, chairman of the House Commerce Committee, which oversees media industry regulation, recently said censorship of pay TV is “an issue whose time is coming. I think we&#8217;re approaching the time when whatever we apply to the broadcasters, in some way, voluntarily or involuntarily, is going to be applied to cable.” </p>
<p>Step back for a moment and think about what this means for popular cable programs such as FX&#8217;s “The Shield,” Comedy Central&#8217;s “South Park” or “The Daily Show,” Showtime&#8217;s “Queer as Folk,” or any of the admired programs that air on HBO in addition to “The Sopranos” (“Sex and the City,” “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” “Six Feet Under” and “Deadwood.”) Are we worse off for having these shows in this world? Some policy-makers apparently think so, and have - in the name of “protecting the children” - put the creative community on notice that they no longer have the artistic freedom to make such programs on their own terms. And Americans who have grown to love such shows will be forced to live with sanitized versions. (Would a bleeped, kid-friendly “Sopranos” even be worth watching?) </p>
<p>Parents need to stand up and tell the government to stay out of their business and then get down to the serious business of educating their children about the realities of this world, include what we see and hear in media today. Government censorship is never a good solution in a free society. As someone on “The Sopranos” would say, just “forgettaboutit!” </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/censor-cable-tv-forgettaboutitFri, 04 Jun 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererShould The Sopranos Be Censored?http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/should-sopranos-be-censored
<p>
<!--TEXT -->
Like millions of other Americans, I will be glued to my television set on Sunday night watching the season finale of HBO&#8217;s critically acclaimed series <em>The Sopranos</em> to see who “gets it,” or even just to hear Tony or one of his mobster buddies say “Forgetaboutit!” one last time this season. </p>
<p>But one person who definitely won&#8217;t be watching <em>The Sopranos</em> finale on Sunday night is my young daughter. The violence, profanity, and sexual content are not something I want her exposed to. I&#8217;m not sure what the right age is for children to see such programming, but at the point my wife and I think she&#8217;s ready, we&#8217;ll talk to her about such shows before we sit down to watch them with her. </p>
<p>While all parents face this same dilemma of figuring out what to let their children watch, the choice my wife and I make for our child may not be the same choice the couple across the street makes for their kids. But that&#8217;s the nature of life in a free society. It&#8217;s filled with tough choices, especially when it comes to raising kids. </p>
<p>There is another alternative, of course. Our government could decide for us which shows are best for our children, or perhaps just determine which hours of the day certain shows could be aired in an attempt to shield our children&#8217;s eyes and ears from them. While there are some who would welcome such a move, I would hope that there are still some other parents like me out there who aren&#8217;t comfortable with the idea of calling in Uncle Sam to play the role of surrogate parent. When government acts to restrict what our children can see or hear, those restrictions bind the rest of us as well, including the millions of Americans who have no children at all. </p>
<p>Even if lawmakers have the best interests of children in mind, I take great offense at the notion that government officials must do this job for me and every other American family. Censorship on an individual/parental level is a fundamental part of being a good parent. But censorship at a governmental level is an entirely different matter because it means a small handful of individuals get to decide what the whole nation is permitted to see, hear or think. </p>
<p>OK, OK&#8230; enough of the heated rhetoric, you say. This guy is just huffin’-and-puffin’ about some Orwellian scenario that doesn&#8217;t exist in this country and never could. After all, nobody&#8217;s seriously talking about censoring <em>The Sopranos</em> or anything else on cable TV, right? They&#8217;re just talking about the censoring broadcasters, who really don&#8217;t get that much heat from regulators anyway, correct? </p>
<p>Wrong on both counts. Building on the momentum of the new indecency witch hunt that is driving many talk shows hosts off broadcast radio, and has television shows like “E.R.” altering their content to keep censors happy, lawmakers are now putting cable and satellite programming in their crosshairs. There are discussions taking place in Congress today about “codes of conduct” for cable TV, and even a government-approved “family-friendly” tier on cable systems. Joe Barton (R-Tex.), chairman of the House Commerce Committee, which oversees media industry regulation, recently told a crowd of cable industry officials that censorship of pay TV is “an issue whose time is coming. I think we&#8217;re approaching the time when whatever we apply to the broadcasters, in some way, voluntarily or involuntarily, is going to be applied to cable.” </p>
<p>Step back for a moment and think about what this means for popular cable programs such as FX&#8217;s <em>The Shield</em>, Comedy Central&#8217;s <em>South Park</em> or <em>The Daily Show</em>, Showtime&#8217;s <em>Queer as Folk</em> or <em>The L Word</em>, or any of the amazing programs that air Sundays on HBO in addition to <em>The Sopranos</em> (<em>Sex and the City</em>, <em>Curb Your Enthusiasm</em>, <em>Six Feet Under</em>, and <em>Deadwood</em>.) Are we worse off for having these shows in this world? Some policymakers apparently think so and have &#8212; in the name of “protecting the children” &#8212; put the creative community on notice that they no longer have the artistic freedom to make such programs on their own terms. And Americans who have grown to love such shows will be forced to live with sanitized version of these programs. (Would a bleeped, “kiddie-approved” version of <em>The Sopranos</em> even be worth watching?) </p>
<p>Parents need to stand up and tell the government to stay out of their business and then get down to the serious business of educating their children about the realities of this world, including what we see and hear in the media today. Government censorship is never a good solution in a free society. As Tony Soprano would say, “Forgetaboutit!” </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/should-sopranos-be-censoredFri, 04 Jun 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. ThiererIs the Bush Administration Finally Getting Serious about Broadband Policy?http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/is-bush-administration-finally-getting-serious-about-broadband-policy
<p>For the past three and a half years, high-tech sector officials and watchers have been patiently waiting and wondering if the Bush administration was ever going to formulate a serious broadband policy. <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/021111-tk.html">Early speeches</a> or announcements on the subject were quite ambiguous and generally characterized by plenty of talk about the importance of a broadband future, but contained very little in the way of action items. In <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/04/print/20040426-6.html" target="_blank">a speech this week</a> in Minneapolis, however, President Bush finally decided to get a little more specific about his vision for this sector.</p>
<p><strong>Better Late Than Never.</strong> One wonders why it took the White House so long to come up with a concrete plan, but elections (sometimes) have a way of forcing candidates to better define themselves in effort to gain voter allegiance. Not that technical telecom and broadband policy matters are likely to win many votes, but their importance to the overall economy is nonetheless clear and that makes what the candidates say on these arcane issues important. What exactly does President Bush propose for broadband? His speech and a <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/infocus/technology/economic_policy200404/chap4.html" target="_blank">corresponding press release</a> contain a few important agenda items worth noting.</p>
<p><em><strong>* Better Access to Federal Lands:</strong></em> First, he proposes increasing access to federal lands for the purposes of laying more fiber optic cables or the placement of wireless transmission towers. That certainly can&#8217;t hurt broadband deployment, but access to <em>state and local</em> lands is the real problem is here. Local rights-of-way issues and wireless tower siting issues have long plagued this sector, but Bush&#8217;s plan only addresses access to federal lands since that&#8217;s the only thing over which he has clear jurisdiction. It would be very difficult-and probably constitutionally impermissible-for the federal government to preempt state and local authority over their rights-of-way or tower-siting decisions. Conclusion: Bush deserves credit for trying to ease government-imposed burdens on broadband deployment, but there&#8217;s likely little he can do about the real impediments to deployment at the state or local level.</p>
<p><em><strong>* Pushing Emerging Broadband Alterntives:</strong></em> Second, Bush stressed the importance of making the policy reforms necessary to encourage emerging broadband technologies, especially broadband over powerlines (BPL) and new wireless networks and applications. On the wireless front, Bush stressed the steps that his administration has already taken to open up more spectrum for private bidding for next generation wireless services as well as the spectrum set aside for unlicensed wireless broadband applications such as Wi-Fi and Wi-Max. He also stresses ongoing efforts by the Department of Commerce to improve spectrum management overall. Conclusion: On each of these agenda items Bush deserves praise for pushing alternative broadband connections for home and business. Even bolder reforms could be pursued on the spectrum front, but the FCC and Commerce Department deserve a great deal of credit for the <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/021121-tk.html">important strides</a> they have taken in recent years to liberalize the spectrum.</p>
<p><em><strong>* Banning Internet Access Taxes:</strong></em> Third, Bush reiterated his support for a permanent ban on state and local efforts to tax broadband access. His timing was important because as he delivered his remarks the Senate was poised to finally give floor consideration to the extension of the Internet Tax Freedom Act, which contains a moratorium on such taxes but expired last fall. Conclusion: Bush deserves credit for once again making it clear that state and local governments shouldn&#8217;t be allowed to convert the Internet into another cash cow to be milked for billions of tax dollars.</p>
<p><em><strong>* Standing by His Man at the FCC:</strong></em> Fourth, and most importantly, the president&#8217;s speech made a specific point of mentioning that “we&#8217;re going to continue to support the Federal Communications Commission” and “Chairman Michael Powell&#8217;s &#8230; decision to eliminate burdensome regulations on new broadband networks availability to homes.” “In other words,” he continued, “clearing out the underbrush of regulation, and we&#8217;ll get the spread of broadband technology, and America will be better for it.” In particular, the press release the White House released after the speech also singled out the FCC&#8217;s decision, pushed strongly by Chairman Powell, to free new fiber-to-the-home investments from traditional telecom regulations, especially the infrastructure-sharing provisions of the Telecommunications Act of 1996. The press release states, “Deregulating new ultra-fast broadband infrastructure to the home removes a significant barrier to new capital investments.” Conclusion: Amen brother! Now why weren&#8217;t you saying this two or three years ago when Powell was pursuing this reform agenda at the FCC against <a href="http://www.cato.org/tech/tk/030314-tk.html">significant opposition</a>? But again, better late than never. With any luck President Bush will continue to stand by Powell and his bold liberalization agenda for broadband and telecommunications.</p>
<p><strong>Will This Be the End of It?</strong> President Bush deserves some credit for finally getting at least a little more serious about broadband and Internet policy. However, one hopes this is not the end of it but just the beginning. While broadband reform will never make for a good stump speech or a bumper sticker slogan, it is still vitally important to the future of our Information Age economy.</p>
<p>There are <a href="http://msnbc.msn.com/id/4702153/" target="_blank">signs</a> that the Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) will be staking out his own broadband agenda in coming weeks and months, so there may be more to come. Kerry will likely support many of the same reform proposals Bush outlined this week but go further in terms of pushing a more activist role for Washington as promoter and subsidizer of broadband to the masses. This is where the Bush team will face a decisive moment of truth: Do they want to follow suit and just get in a broadband spending war with Kerry, or will President Bush make an effort to prove that the Republican Party really can be the party of smaller government by proposing the comprehensive deregulation of communications and broadband?</p>
<p>There were moments during President Bush&#8217;s recent speech and press release where he sounded like a Democrat in calling for “universal broadband” coverage by 2007, which is probably not possible anyway since not every American wants or needs broadband in the home. And Bush also talks up the idea that broadband technology must be affordable “to make sure it gets spread to all corners of the country.” Well, what if it isn&#8217;t? After all, it&#8217;s not exactly cheap to deploy expensive high-speed networks coast-to-coast. If prices don&#8217;t fall below $40 per month, should government impose price controls? Let&#8217;s hope Bush is just being a politician here and not really advocating a command-and-control regime for broadband. Indeed, perhaps the most heartening moment in his speech came when he noted that the “proper role for the government is to clear regulatory hurdles so those who are going to make investments do so.” “Broadband is going to spread,” he continued, “because it&#8217;s going to make sense for private sector companies to spread it so long as the regulatory burden is reduced-in other words, so long as policy at the government level encourages people to invest” instead of discouraging investment.</p>
<p>Here&#8217;s hoping that the president sticks to his guns on that promise.</p>
<p> </p>
http://www.cato.org/publications/techknowledge/is-bush-administration-finally-getting-serious-about-broadband-policyWed, 28 Apr 2004 (All day)Adam D. Thierer (Author at Cato Institute)Adam D. Thierer